Political Outcomes Quotes

The law of unintended consequences, far more than the Constitution, is what governs the modern presidency.

Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.

Successful and unsuccessful political policies have one commonalty. The people who created the policies thought they would be successful.

I think President Obama is a committed, practicing nonideologue. He's consumed by neither tactics nor ideology. He is more concerned about outcomes than he is about process and categorizations.

Increasingly, we’re seeing people try to define more speech as dangerous because it may lead to political outcomes they see as unacceptable. Some hold the view that since the stakes are so high, they can no longer trust their fellow citizens with the power to communicate and decide what to believe for themselves.

You change society by changing the wind. Change the wind, transform the debate, recast the discussion, alter the context in which political discussions are being made, and you will change the outcomes... You will be surprised at how fast the politicians adjust to the change in the wind.

While legislation obviously is political, we now have allowed regulation to become politicized, which we believe will likely lead to some bad outcomes.

They have to have some dividends out of democracy.

Circumstances give in reality to every political principle, its distinguishing colour, and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.

I think the Mogadishu effect, if I had to define it, is we need to be more careful where we decide to commit US forces, and for what reason, and to make a clear judgment as to what we can and can't do and whether it's in our interests, or we could afford the resources that it would take to make the situation right.

Good policy makes good politics and what I've done has been good politics.

Elites are inevitable in politics. That is how politics is going to work. The question is, are your elites responsible, public-spirited? Do they think about the interests of others, not just themselves? And the story of Western politics since the beginning of the century is that as elites become more separated, more selfish, as they leave behind their populations and don't think about them, they become discredited. And the people look for alternatives. But the alternative is worse. Those rules of the game protect us all. And they are more precious than almost any political outcome.

In baseball when they say you're out, you're out. It's the same way in politics.

What matters is not a simple sense of an issue’s salience, but whether a government can shape outcomes on it, where there is the greatest likelihood that the parties will actually be able to implement their policies.

Some people believe giving more people a voice is driving division rather than bringing us together. More people across the spectrum believe that achieving the political outcomes they think matter is more important than every person having a voice.

Campaigns have consequences.

The problem is that there is no reliable source of information left, no way to accumulate trusted accounts of the plusses and minuses of any given political choice.

We have to judge politicians by their cumulative score. In one innings they make a great catch, in another they drop the ball. In one they score a home run, in another they strike out. But it is their cumulative batting average that we are interested in.

For liberals, supposedly good intentions always trump results.

Politics is like sausage being made. It is unsavory, and it always has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be.

War is, in fact, an extension of politics, and in any war, military operations have to be conducted in such a way that they contribute to sustainable political outcomes consistent with vital interests that are at stake in that war.

Parliament is a potent engine, and its enactments must always do something, but they very seldom do what the originators of these enactments meant.

I don't think I've had any great success in predicting politics or social change, nor have I really tried.

Politics with me isn't theater. It's performance art. Sometimes, for its own sake.

In elections, the undecided vote is usually the deciding factor.