Discrediting Opponents Quotes

You never win an argument until they attack your person.

Candidates who went into an election with negatives higher than 30 or 40 points just inevitably lost.... Drive up the opposition's negatives.

It wouldn’t hurt to remind the voters of what scoundrels your opponents are and to smear them at every opportunity….

The problem with smear campaigns is that too often they work

We shouldn't have someone working in the Oval Office trying to discredit and smear a private individual who's just speaking their mind about an important issue facing the country. That is not going to move our nation forward.

While nobody likes a watchdog, and for that reason many investigating committees are unpopular, I thank God for men who, in the face of public denouncement and ridicule go loyally on in their work of exposing the pinks, the lavenders and the reds who have sought refuge beneath the wings of the American eagle …

Guilt by association is part of campaigning.

More people need to understand the games secular liberals play. Here's one rule-of-thumb: No matter how bad a story sounds - particularly if it sounds bad - recognize the pattern of defamation.

It’s attack advertising. It’s dirty tricks advertising. It’s dishonest and lowers the level of the political conversation.

I don't think most people are aware of the exotic and extreme tools at the disposal of the most powerful and wealthy men of America when they are bent at silencing accusations against them.

I suppose politicians have always wanted to get re-elected, but there's a kind of a feeling now that if you just discredit your opposition, it makes it easier for you to win. I don't think that's necessarily true.

“Denialism” sounds monstrous. It was coined decades ago to designate people who claim the Holocaust didn’t happen. Around 2005, climate-change activists appropriated the term and started to refer to their opponents as “climate deniers” (or, later, “science deniers”). This was an attempt to discredit them by linking them to Nazis without making any factual assertions whatever.

I don't believe in mud slinging. I don't think it does any good.

You don't even have to attack him [Ross Perot]. All you have to do is quote what he says.