Political Machinations Quotes

I have no doubt that the Congress is active in manipulative politics.

Lyndon Johnson was perhaps the greatest political arm twister in the country’s history.

The White House is another world. Expediency is everything.

Politics is ugly. Never doubt what small men will do for great power.

Politics is a blood sport.

Anyone who gets to the top in politics is a control freak.

Oh, that all the things my father had told me about how disgusting Washington is are true. And again it's the system - there are lots of nice, well-meaning people there. But it's a sleazy place. And politics is all about doing favors.

Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

Richard Nixon was a very complex man. I don't think he was a conservative, nor liberal, not even a moderate. He was a pragmatic politician. He loved politics.

…the nomination of Mr. Lincoln took everybody by surprise: it was brought about by accident or trick, by which my pledged friends had to vote against me… The thing was well planned and boldly executed.

When you start attacking cronyism and people's political interests, it gets nasty.

I've been able to see some very impressive people that are in politics, and I've been able to see a lot more people that are much less impressive that I don't know if I'd want to spend my life working with. When I see sort of how the sausage is made, it's not very pretty.

No doubt the ridiculous politicians are right to like politics. They have found careers in which success can be achieved by being ridiculous. Imagine Jimmy Carter or George W. Bush rising to the top of any other profession.

I think Barack Obama has brought a new level of ethical standards to Washington. Has he changed some basic hard-knuckle politics? No. You need hard-knuckle politics to succeed.

Politics is the diversion of trivial men who, when they succeed at it, become important in the eyes of more trivial men.

When the wind is right, a faint odor of kerosene is exhaled from Senator McCarthy.

Washington is deeply frustrating because so many of the positions that politicians hold are a product of ephemeral self-interest. They reverse themselves, for themselves, all the time.

Fine wits destroy themselves with their own plots, in meddling with great affairs of state.

Two kinds of men generally best succeed in political life; men of no principle, but of great talent; and men of no talent, but of one principle - that of obedience to their superiors.

Romney is pretending to be something he is not. He is renting the Republican party in order to fulfill his ambition of being President. The Republican party is renting Romney in order to fulfill its ambition of beating Barack Obama.

Gray Davis can run a dirty campaign better than anyone, but he can't run a state.

No matter how you rearrange President Obama's inner circle, it still looks, smells and tastes like a rotten Chicago deep-dish pizza.

Of course, in my country most political leaders are really, well, I suppose I think of them as being, well, not gangsters but more or less the same kind of thing, no? I mean—people who go in for getting elected. What can you expect of a man like that?

Ah, political physics. Someone wins an election and, poof, they are a candidate for vice president. Ridiculous.

After … years of political life most men acquire enemies as ships acquire barnacles.