Liberal Label Quotes

If I were a black liberal, I would be hailed, I guess. But I'm not. I mean, I think for myself. I want to make my own decisions.

I wouldn't characterise myself as a bleeding heart liberal, whatever that is.

Take like, say, Obama, he's called "liberal" and he's praised for his "principled objection to the Iraq war". What was his "principled objection"? He says it was a "strategic blunder," like Nazi generals after Stalingrad.

I am not a liberal who is so afraid of the word that I had to change my name to progressive.

I'm a liberal - and I'm not running from that word!

I don't mind being called a liberal. I just don't really think it's true.

While opponents label (Howard) Dean a throwback liberal, The New York Times recently noted that as governor, Dean cut income taxes, reformed welfare and balanced Vermont's budget - all traditionally conservative policies. Dean also received an 'A' rating from the National Rifle Association, which I think you can't get unless you've killed a guy.

You can say you're a liberal and everybody laughs and it's a good time.

Well, I am not afraid of the word 'liberal.'

Phil Griffin, who happens to be the head of MSNBC, is not a liberal or progressive. I worked at MSNBC; I talked to Phil Griffin many times. I know Phil Griffin. He is not remotely progressive. All he cares about is success in his own career.

I'm not Rebus. We're not the same. I don't even think he'd like me if we met. He'd think I was a wishy-washy liberal.

Liberals are liberals, and it's not helpful to them when they are so identified. They go out of their way to avoid being called liberal. They don't like it. They talk about Republican versus Democrat, voter identification, conservative versus liberal is where you need to look.

We've learned how to use the alternative media-political direct mail and talk radio and cable TV-to build our movement and convert more and more Americans to our cause. "Liberal" is now such an unpopular label with the American people that every liberal I know has run for cover and calls himself a "progressive.

Ever since Richard Nixon walloped George McGovern in the presidential election of 1972, political pundits have treated as a truism the proposition that liberals are out of step with the rest of the nation, and therefore all but unelectable outside the precincts of the Northeast -- give or take a college town here or a ski resort there. During the course of every presidential election for the past forty years now, Republicans have sought to wield the word liberal as if it were a six-gauge shotgun.

'60 Minutes' was a disaster for me because it made everybody think that I was the house liberal of CBS, which is the part that I was playing. It was fun for a while.

When I ran for the Senate the first time, I ran against the wealthiest guy in the state of Vermont. He spent a lot on advertising - very ugly stuff. He kept attacking me as a liberal. He didn't use the word 'socialist' at all because everybody in the state knows that I am that.

In America, if a Democrat even thinks you're calling him liberal he grabs an orange vest and a rifle and heads into the woods to kill something.