Political Intuition Quotes

Mr. [Judah P.] Benjamin, unquestionably, will have great influence with the President [Jefferson Davis], for he has studied his character most carefully. He will be familiar not only with his "likes" but especially his "dislikes.

If you're in politics and you can't tell when you walk into a room who's for you and who's against you, then you're in the wrong line of work.

[There is] a type of which he [Theodore Roosevelt] is perhaps the master specimen—the politician who could not help being one if he tried…. when Mr. Roosevelt takes a step which the mass of his fellow citizens regard as carefully considered for its political effect, the chances are at least even that he is merely obeying a natural impulse, which may make for either strength or weakness.

That’s the lesson of politics. Go with your gut. You don’t know what is going to happen.

President George W. Bush looked into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s eyes and said “I saw his soul.” Putin looked into Bush’s eyes---and saw NOTHING.

You can't be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who's for you and who's against you.

My friends tell me that I have the wrong temperament for politics.

I was like, wow, this guy's [Donald Trump ] going to do well. And I remember people laughed at me. People were like, oh, you silly ignorant person who's just come to this world. You clearly shouldn't be at "The Daily Show" 'cause you don't know what you're talking about. And I was like, but I don't know. He seems like he connects with people. I can relate to him as a performer. I can see what tools he's using. He's good at riffing. He's good at taking the crowd on a journey. I can see what he's doing.

Lyndon Johnson might have been the greatest vote counter ever in Congress, not because of his math skills but because of his unrivaled ability to read his fellow politicians and his utter ruthlessness in using what he knew.

I think the arrogance of people who think or actually are in the establishment, think they're part of it or actually are, they cannot help themselves, apparently. They take this guy, Trump, who is not a politician, in the career sense, and they plug him into their system and analyze what he does and what he says the way they analyze professional politicians and what they say and do, and they miss it. Which is not news. The news is they're not even getting close to understanding it yet. Despite the never-ending efforts on the part of people like me to help them figure it out.

I think that politics in most people's lives expresses itself like that: indirectly, in half thought-out opinions and feelings. And sometimes through a connection with something that is very real. But we don't have the knowledge or language to speak about it.

When I want to know what the French people think, I ask myself.

People tease me about knowing somehow that Obama would put Clinton into the cabinet, and everybody would talk about a team of rivals.

Interestingly, a number of the people I know - probably you do, too - who predicted that Trump would win were precisely Russians and Ukrainians who found the political style familiar and just asked, 'Well, why couldn't it work there?' They were the ones who turned out to be right.

Hillary Clinton has no instinct.