Political Conventions Quotes

Working for the 'Miami Herald' in 1972, I covered street action for both the Republican and Democratic national conventions in Miami and saw probably the most violent conventions ever - more violent than even 1968 in Chicago.

It’s an easy house to play. You’ve got them all there, and they’re all on your side.

American politics is theatre. There is a frightening emotionalism at national conventions.

Only in Washington would the Republican operatives get the entire press corps ginned up over the notion that I'm going to be home campaigning instead of going to a bunch of worthless parties at a convention that's only being held to do something we all know is going to happen anyway.

Political conventions are as fascinating as a circus or a hanging.

It was hard to have a conversation with anyone. There were too many people talking..

There is no question that the Vietnam War ruined the 1968 convention in Chicago…. We had nothing to give the moderates on Vietnam so the hard-liners tore the convention apart.

The dirty work at political conventions is almost always done in the grim hours between midnight and dawn. Hangmen and politicians work best when the human spirit is at its lowest ebb.

If we should see ladies attending conventions, traveling about the country in great carts drawn by many yoke of oxen, waving their pocket handkerchiefs to assembled multitudes, it would greatly shock our sensibilities.

Have you noticed how the Republicans and Democrats try to copy each other at their conventions. Like at the Democratic convention John Kerry's daughter told a story about how he once gave CPR to her hamster. At the Republican convention the Bush girls are going to tell a story about how when their hamster was bad, their dad built them a little electric chair.

Now, national conventions are largely an excuse for companies and party leaders to throw parties for delegates to attend, to network and have a good time.

It is proclaimed by the great leaders of that party, by its political conventions, by its ministers of the Gospel, and by every other means they have of giving currency and importance to the declaration, that it is its mission to abolish slavery in the Union.

Oftentimes during the period in which conventions really did business, you had situations where the delegates were divided and you would have ballot after ballot before there was a final nominee.

The Republican National Convention was a rage-athon featuring a parade of hemorrhoidal has-beens.

When I was a teenager, I loved political conventions.

In entertainment value, the Democratic clambake usually lays it over the Republican conclave like ice cream over parsnips.

I recognize what [political] conventions are all about—a cross between a clambake and a pep rally.

My family was very engaged in the world around us. My father was an African Methodist Episcopal minister and an immigrant from Panama. He was deeply involved in civil rights causes, which scared my mother - she was also an immigrant, from Barbados, who had her hands full with six kids, and she worried that my father would get deported. But because of his passion for politics and civil rights, we paid close attention to current events. We would watch political conventions together - for fun!

My presence here is one additional bit of evidence that the American dream need not be deferred.

A critical function that we journalists perform at political conventions is to try to get into parties that we have not been invited to. There are dozens of these parties, sponsored by large corporations with a sincere public-spirited desire to become larger.

In the poetry of immigrants, nostalgia is as common as confetti at parades or platitudes at political conventions.

I go not back of the convention, to make distinctions among its’ members.

It would be nice if Patrick Murphy was half as upset about Democrats removing God and Jerusalem from their platform, or booing when they were added back in, as he is pretending to be about our new tv ad which simply points out what happened.

I had to watch the Republican stuff which makes me feel even older than I am. By the time I get through the Democrats, I may be dead. I don't know how much older I can get.

[Political] Convention cities lie defenseless ... exposing their throats to the first impressions, superficial observations and random episodes that occur to four-day visitors who spend most of their time in taxi-cabs, hotel lobbies and convention halls.