Political Competition Quotes

I won in a primary, so I understand primary fights.

Political competition is the heartbeat of democracy.

Obviously as a mayor, I'm in competition with my neighboring cities as well as cities around the country.

[Politics is a] war of all against all … a quest for power after power that ceaseth only in death.

I didn't go into Parliament to be fair to my opponents. Quite honestly I went in to jump on their windpipes!”

In the past, in order to continue as a candidate, a serious candidate, you had to be in the top three finishes in Iowa. You had to be in the top two out of New Hampshire. All our presidents elected in the past half-century finished either first or second in New Hampshire and in the top three in Iowa. That changed with the Citizens United, when we gave unlimited amounts of money.

Politics is a blood sport.

Honey, there go 20 million votes, but we’ll get over it.

If you know the only way to lose your seat is to get out-conservatived in a primary, you'll never let anyone get to your right.

In my primary, I only won by 23 votes in that one, so every vote really does count, and I want to make sure I get as many as I possibly can.

The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.

I have no more campaigns to run... I know because I won both of them.

I'm young enough not to be a rival to Mr. Basescu.

You know, in politics when you come in third, it's a win.

We can't win a war, but we can win an election.

Our national politics has become a competition for images or between images, rather than between ideals.

Politics is a contact sport - a question of accepting an elbow or two.

John Kerry's victory over Howard Dean has completely changed the presidential race around. Now instead of the rich white guy from Yale who lives in the White house facing off against the rich white guy from Yale who lives in Vermont, he may have to face the rich white guy from Yale who lives in Massachusetts. It's a whole different game.

Modern politics is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but of forces.

It’s a good thing in politics that candidates run against each other; otherwise no one would win.

If you're going to get into the political business, you've got to be intensively competitive.

It's always great to have an enemy in politics; there's no question about that.

It's gotta be hard when you are a newcomer to this kind of thing, this big political scene and you have somebody like Michael Bloomberg come in with hundreds of millions of dollars, dumping it in.

I think Donald Trump and Jeb Bush are the frontrunners. It's kind of like the race between the tortoise and the bad hair.

Hillary has her work cut out for her. Her Democratic challengers are a 'Who's Who' of 'who's that?' Jim Webb, Lincoln Chafee, Silas Phelps, Peter Wilks... now those last two were characters from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. You didn't even notice, did you?