Political Tactics Quotes

Ninety percent of politics is deciding whom to blame.

Our adversaries - our Democratic adversaries - like to be able to portray the Republican Party as a bunch of wingnuts - narrow based, always have some agenda that's not attractive to the public... That's easier for them, and more fun, than dealing with their own problems. And I think their problems are significant.

If Romney would go ideological in explaining Obama, it would help. We gotta stop the, 'He's a nice guy' stuff. Nice guys don't do what Obama is doing. Nice guys don't say and do and act the way Obama is saying, doing, and acting.

Democrats losing elections. Donald Trump did win this. It's not illegitimate. And when the day comes that they realize and sober up that he's not going to be hounded out of office, that he's not gonna wake up one day and say to Mike Pence, "Here. Take the keys. I've had it." Then what are they gonna do? Because they're shooting every barrel they've got now. And they will probably continue. The think least we can make people hate him.

This is a political season where politicians will do almost anything to prey on the public’s fear of job loses.

If [the Conservatives] lose, we say, "Okay, we gotta change. We gotta improve, come back and win the next election." They [leftists] don't. When they lose and even when they win, because they know that they're in a numerical minority. But that numerical minority is a vast majority of pop culture and education environments. And so they just bully their way.

While President Obama assumes that at their core the Republican leadership team is just trying to do what's best for America, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner assume that the president is cynically trying to secure his own reelection, power, and legacy.

Trump knows where his strengths exist, and he is emphatically in favor of doubling down on them. This goes far beyond appointing Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

I'm not the inventor of negative campaigning, but I'm an ardent practitioner.

I have been a practitioner of tough politics for many decades. There is little that amazes me and even less that shocks me.

Politicians always do a two-step, depending on what their district politics looks like.

Politics is a blood sport.

The first rule in politics is never defend, always attack.

Every great political campaign rewrites the rules; devising a new way to win is what gives campaigns a comparative advantage against their foes.

Does it make any sense at all that the chair of a national party would want fewer voters to see our candidates?

We've always said a filibuster is not appropriate for judicial nominees. A filibuster is a legislative tool designed to extract compromises. A judicial nominee is a person. You can't take the arm or leg of a nominee.

[In a political contest,] the first guy who defines the other, wins

First, he demands votes; second, he asks for votes; third, he begs for them; fourth, he weeps for them.

The Democrats have tried the war against women in the past. It didn't really have that much traction.

Divide and conquer. Get your adversaries fighting among themselves

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

A politician must often talk and act before he has thought and read. He may be very ill-informed respecting a question; all his notions about it may be vague and inaccurate, but speak he must; and if he is a man of talents, of tact, and of intrepidity, he soon finds that, even under such circumstances, it is possible to speak successfully.

We know that a government shutdown is gonna blamed on the Republicans no matter who, what, when, where, why. You want to give the media ammo going into 2018, how the Republicans hate government, the Republicans hate you, the Republicans want you dead, the Republicans want your kids dead, the Republicans want you breathing dirty air, poisoned water, and all this stuff, a shutdown in September, it would actually be in October, because that's - I don't mean to pick hairs here, but a shutdown would be in October if it happens.

Unfortunately, every American citizen takes the same position... that we don’t like negative advertisements. But they work! And, as you see, many a candidate has prevailed by tearing down the reputation of an opponent in a more advantageous position.

There is never just one way in politics.