Spin Doctors Quotes

I remain terrified of the capacity of the media, the capacity of spin doctors, here and abroad, particularly the United States media, to perpetuate false lies, perpetuate lies.

I think the 24-hour news cycle has helped exaggerate the differences between the parties. You can always find someone on TV somewhere carping about something. That didn't happen 20 years ago.

Super Tuesday is the day on which most states hold their primaries. Its darker partner is Dirty Tricks Thursday: the Thursday before an election when candidates release scandalous stories to garner bad publicity for their opponent: the timing means the accused will have little time to refute the allegations.

There are people who are very highly paid to cover the truth and who will protect their clients.

Those villainous reporters [Stephen] Douglas has with him.

For those of you who still believe in the Easter Bunny and that the letters that appear in your local newspaper come from concerned citizens who really care, I've got troubling news. At least in politics, most of the letters that get published on the letters-to-the-editor page originate in the campaign headquarters of the candidates.

Even though voters overwhelmingly dislike negative ads, they do influence voters' opinions about a candidate.

Politics is show business for ugly people.

You can't let a candidate run for too long. He will be dragged along, cut apart, put back together and ripped to shreds again - from both the political opponents and the media.

A dozen men in good suits and women in silk dresses will circulate smoothly among the reporters, spouting confident opinions. They won't be just press agents trying to impart a favorable spin to a routine release. They'll be the Spin Doctors, senior advisers to the candidates

Public policy is designed by spin doctors who aim to keep our heads below the water. The public good is not a consideration, and their self-serving agendas prevail over common sense.

As someone who's been covering presidential campaigns since the 1950s, I have no delusions about political reporting. Candidates bargaining access to get the kind of news coverage they want is nothing new.

Today enormous effort goes into convincing the American public that we're just consumers of media manipulation and sound-bites and spin doctors. That we care only about ourselves, money, and stuff. That acting out of passion and conviction doesn't make a difference. But all history shows that it does.

When governments rely increasingly on sophisticated public relations agencies, public debate disappears and is replaced by competing propaganda campaigns, with all the accompanying deceits. Advertising isn't about truth or fairness or rationality, but about mobilising deeper and more primitive layers of the human mind.

It seems that the first victim of an Obama campaign is the truth. It seems that the first victim of an Obama campaign is the truth.

Because I live and work in Washington, D.C., I have a ringside seat at the world capital of The Persuasive Arts, or, as I like to call it, The Opinions Racket.

The trouble [with modern political campaigns] is that the technicians of the media and the professional campaign advisors believe that the negative commercials and the attack work better.

If any politician tells you he likes campaigning, you are either dealing with a liar or a psychopath.

In the 1972 election campaign the citizen would be the victim of the most sophisticated sales blizzard ever inflicted on any voting population anywhere.

All politicians are to some extent salesmen.

Odious campaigns are a national tradition, and so is complaining about them.

The Year of the Talking Head

Professional politicians will say anything, and they're always careful to leave themselves room to turn around and do the other.

As problems have grown more complex, leaders have struggled to find the language to discuss them clearly, credibly and at the right emotional amplitude. Nonplussed and tongue-tied, politicians give themselves over to message gurus … who peddle the notion that poll-tested words — honed and targeted with scientific precision — can pick the lock of public opinion.

The press doesn't just cover presidential campaigns, they influence them by making arbitrary decisions about who is 'top tier' and merits coverage.