electoral challenges Quotes

I don't buy the argument that there can't be a successful independent candidacy for the presidency of the United States. People who say, 'It can't happen,' are many of the same people who said we'd never elect an African American.

I don't think anybody from the South will be nominated [for President] in my lifetime. If so, I don't think he will be elected.

It is not easy to fight elections with a development motto and I am glad people of Gujarat rose above personal and emotional tangles and prioritized development over everything else.

That's the trouble with trying to influence an undecided voter. First you have to find one.

When I was a kid, politicians wanted to avoid talking about religion if they could. John F. Kennedy couldn't duck the issue, being Catholic and all. So how did he address it? By reminding Americans that religion shouldn't be an issue, that he was concentrating on big things like poverty and hunger and leading the space race.

I don't know how you change that. There's hardly anybody left like me in the Democratic Party in Congress. These districts have been so gerrymandered that, in most of them, a Democrat can't win. Somebody like me trying to start off today, he'd never get endorsed. Because I'm too conservative.

Race is still a powerful force in this country. Any African American candidate, or any Latino candidate, or Asian candidate or woman candidate confronts a higher threshold in establishing himself to the voters ... Are some voters not going to vote for me because I'm African American? Those are the same voters who probably wouldn't vote for me because of my politics.

It hasn't been for a lack of trying. But we really have to analyze in a deeper way why we have these problems - at least at the state level - electing an African-American.

When I was a campaign worker, you would meet people who would want to vote but didn't have any money for postage. It happens more often than people think.

It's hard running for office when people can't say your name.

[Hillary] Clinton has also struggled with key groups of voters.

I’m too hard-headed; nobody will ever vote for me. I’ll find another way to serve.

Florida is very difficult to have name ID... That's why statewide incumbents usually get reelected in Florida.

To get elected as a Democrat, it's hard to be from the city. It's hard to be a graduate of Duke University.

There are some who might say that somebody named Barack Obama can't be elected senator in the state of Illinois. They're probably the same folks who said that a guy named Rod Blagojevich couldn't be elected governor of the state of Illinois.

Pennsylvania is a very tough state; people don't last long in Pennsylvania politics.

It is always tough to win every booth right across the electorate because there are different issues in different parts of the electorate.

As those states and others in the South and West become more diverse and educated, they will become harder for the Republican Party - in its current form - to win.

What I'm concerned about is the views of many Democrats who know their states, who know how hard it is to win a general election. And it also will push whoever the nominee is into the spotlight. I've been vetted. There's hardly anything you don't know about me. And I think it's fair to say that whoever is in that position, Senator Bernie Sanders or anyone else who might have run, will face the most withering onslaught.

That could be a high water mark for the Green Party in its history. What two states, I can only guess, aren't you going to be on because of horrendous obstacles to getting on the ballot.

There are so many candidates, so it's very hard to get over that number. It's very unfair, in a we are - but because of the fact that there's so many candidates and so many candidates are grabbing delegates.