Presidential Selection Quotes

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

The United States ought to be able to choose for its president anybody that it wants, regardless of the number of terms he has served.

Presidents are elected not by direct popular vote but by 538 members of the Electoral College.

In the United States, anybody can be President. That's the problem.

We are trying to pick the next president, not review the birth of the current president.

[The Electoral College] affords a moral certainty that the office of the Presidency will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.

And remember, this was a president (George W. Bush) who was selected by the Supreme Court rather than the people.

If it's a close election, then it's better for the Supreme Court to pick the president, whether or not he won the election. It's just insane on its face.

President Bush said the job of the Supreme Court is extremely important because as you know these are the people who choose the president of the United States.

We're choosing our Presidents from a smaller and smaller pool—a gene pool.

The one appearance that I made for President Kennedy, he, as I understand, had his choice or was asked to make a list of the people he would like to have perform, and I was fortunate enough to be one of them.

(The Weakest Link) is fascinating program. They ask a bunch of people questions and they keep getting rid of the dumbest person, so just the smartest person is left. It is kind of the opposite way we elect a president.

For example, a man who might not have enormous charisma, who could be president 40 years ago, and who was a deserving president, I don't know that George Washington would be a president today, I don't know that Abe Lincoln would, I don't know that Roosevelt would.

A lot of people criticize the primaries, but I think they are absolutely essential to the education of the President of the United States.

[I find it] impossible [to imagine] that a nation which is grounded in Judaeo-Christian principles would somehow select someone [for President] who would repudiate those principles.

I ascribe to Mark Twain's theory that the last person who should be President is the one who wants it the most. The one who should be picked is the one who should be dragged kicking and screaming into the White House.

The popular choice is not elected as president.

I believe you select a president who best represents what you think are the values that God wants us to have.

Many of the nation’s 59 prior presidential elections have been choices between mediocrities, with some scoundrels thrown in (and into office). This year’s choice is, however, the worst ever.

This is exactly why the Electoral College is set up the way it is, so that one state would not elect the president.

In the early days of the Republic, civil service officers as well as the Presidents and the Cabinet, were generally selected from well-known families…. Andrew Johnson, would not have passed a test by a civil service commission; it would not have required a profound psychological knowledge to arrive at the conclusion, that a man may rise from the tailor shop to … the gubernatorial chair, and yet be morally and intellectually incapable of presiding … over the destinies of a great nation.

I don't have any problem with the right candidate [for presidency]. And so whoever I believe is going to be the best for that office - and the most qualified - is the reason that we put them in that position.

I'm often asked by search committees for public and private universities to help them think about how to find their next president.

We will soon know whether the Supreme Court choose the President of the United States or the people of Florida chose the President.

Two persons have been elected to the offices of President and Vice-President exclusively by the people of ONE SECTION of the country...A clearer case of foreign domination could not well be presented.