Presidential Campaign Quotes

#1. The author commented that John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign team worked like a band of brothers, while Richard Nixon's campaign team worked like a band of brothers in law under the direction of a quarrelsome aunt.

David Pietrusza

#2. On the issue of Iraq, it is my hope, and my challenge to my colleagues, that our debate will be based on what is best for the future of our nation and for Iraq, not what's best for a political party or presidential campaign.

Mitch McConnell

#3. When Al Gore picked Joe Lieberman to be his running mate in the 2000 presidential campaign, Eszterhas wrote "Joe Lieberman frightens me. Why should we, an Hollywood voter, donate money to a man who threatens our creative freedom, our freedom of expression."

David Shuster

#4. I injured myself politically when I took on Jesse Jackson' in the 1988 presidential campaign. I was too strident. I didn't recognize the emotional tie that he had with all black voters.

Ed Koch

#5. I work really long hours and work a lot and have done press tours and junkets, but there is nothing like a presidential campaign that I have experienced before ... I think at one point we visited three different cities in one state in 12 hours. It's exhausting.

America Ferrera

#6. Marco Rubio's presidential campaign has raised $40 million in the last week. When he heard that, Rubio said, 'Hey, any chance I can drop out of the race and just keep the 40 million?'

Jimmy Fallon

#7. Witness Donald Trump's current presidential campaign. So first people need to find the white spaces, the unexploited or underexploited niches where there is less competition and more opportunity.

Jeffrey Pfeffer

#8. In a presidential campaign, you can't lie. You can't hide what you are and what you want. You can't hide what kind of President you'll be. You can't keep on talking about nothing indefinitely and committing to nothing, you can't keep running away from debate, masking the challenges.

Nicolas Sarkozy

#9. You're a trivial part in a trivia game.
Now what's your aim? A presidential campaign?
Like Ross Perot? He lost it though ...
But he got a billion in tha bank fo' sho'!

Aceyalone

#10. President Obama is a big supporter of keeping the Internet open. During his presidential campaign, he pledged his support to net neutrality repeatedly.

Marvin Ammori

#11. Third parties in America gravitate not only to the extremes, but to irrelevance. (John Anderson's upcoming presidential campaign will undoubtedly confirm both tendencies.)

Charles Krauthammer

#12. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid marveled at the electability of Barack Obama because, unlike previous black candidates, Mr. Obama was 'light-skinned' and lacked a 'Negro dialect.'

Monica Crowley

#13. Attack politics costs us dearly in terms of insight into the candidates. In a presidential campaign, the focus is so tight that the politicians are afraid to say anything that hasn't been scripted.

Jack Germond

#14. The night before I began my career as a presidential campaign reporter, in September 2007, I finished Theodore White's 'The Making of the President,' the classic account of the 1960 race, which opened up a new era of campaign reporting.

Michael Hastings

#15. I had hoped that the current presidential campaign debates might educate the public as to what is really involved in the ongoing controversy over campaign financing.

James L. Buckley

#16. The point of a presidential campaign is to put the candidate through the ringer: to force him to get banged up by his opponents and the press, and to have to answer the difficult and uncomfortable questions, be investigated, and learn the thrust and parry of political swordplay.

Monica Crowley

#17. Presidential campaign observer Teddy White on the second Kennedy-Nixon debate in which the candidates spoke from separate television studios: It was as if, separated by comments from his adversary, Richard Nixon was more at ease and could speak directly to the nation that lay between them.

David Pietrusza

#18. Who knows if John McCain could have won that presidential campaign [2008] in any circumstances when George W. Bush the outgoing Republican president had a 22 percent approval rating.

Rachel Maddow

#19. it is not surprising that some, such as the historian John R. Vile, suggest we consider the concession as a form of military surrender or even a funeral oration. Just as after a war, the public wants peace after a presidential campaign. They hope that politicians will emulate that most

Scott Farris

#20. The 2016 presidential campaign is heating up. Can you feel the indifference, the apathy?

David Letterman

#21. Sometimes in the middle of a presidential campaign, there's a political movie, and people are sick of hearing about politics, and they don't want to see that movie. They'd rather see "Godzilla."

Casey Affleck

#22. I say what I think. I'm a real person, not some manufactured pop tart who's afraid to step out of the hotel room. I am flawed. I swear, I have the occasional cocktail, I pick my nose and I fart. I'm not running for any presidential campaign at the moment. I'm a sassy girl.

Katy Perry

#23. Presidential campaign getting kind of ugly, did you hear about this? Yesterday, a 27-year-old woman came for to deny rumors that she had an affair with Democratic front-runner John Kerry. The woman added, 'I would never cheat on Bill Clinton.'

Conan O'Brien

#24. or the need for a Trump 2012 presidential campaign ("This is what I've been waiting for my whole life, a president who's not afraid to tell the truth about being a lying asshole!"),

Chris Smith

#25. The attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi has become a political football in the presidential campaign, with all the grandstanding and misinformation that entails.

David Ignatius

#26. Grassroots organizing tends to be most available to big campaigns, but it's actually most useful to small ones. You can't win a presidential campaign without going on TV, but you can win a local election simply by organizing your community. NationBuilder levels the playing field.

Joe Green

#27. Bush had expertise in one thing: How to run a Presidential campaign. He understands campaigns and Presidential politics. He has no interest or disposition or I think probably - he's not stupid, but he's not bright, he's not a rocket scientist - he isn't interested in policy.

John Dean

#28. I am suspending my presidential campaign, because of the continued distractions, the continued hurt caused on me and my family, not because we are not fighters. Not because I'm not a fighter.

Herman Cain

#29. Let's not overlook, though, what we do know about the campaign finance scandal, and the fact the Chinese were involved in our presidential campaign and our congressional campaigns.

Fred Thompson

#30. Any time you get into a presidential campaign and the stakes are so high, all candidates - they want to be in complete control whenever they can. And you can't blame them for that.

Bob Schieffer

#31. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign announced that it raised over $1.5 million in the 24 hours after he announced his bid. Meanwhile, a 12-year-old on Kickstarter just raised $7 million in five minutes after announcing his idea for juice box water guns.

Jimmy Fallon

#32. I believe over the long term he's going to have the money, and he's got the message, that this is going to be one of the finalists for the presidential campaign.

Ted Cruz

#33. This week Biden said that he will decide on a potential 2016 presidential campaign by the spring or the summer. Then he said, 'Whichever comes first.'

Jimmy Fallon

#34. I perfectly understood President Obama's attitude throughout the French presidential campaign. He had no reason to distance himself from Nicolas Sarkozy. It's the basic solidarity that leaders who worked together owe to each other.

Francois Hollande

#35. The arguments in the Brexit vote and in the American presidential campaign are about the same. In a friendly way, may I also give some advice to the American people to make the right choice when the moment comes.

Francois Hollande

#36. Herman Cain has suspended his presidential campaign, but he has asked the Secret Service if they could continue to provide him protection, at least until his wife cools off.

David Letterman

#37. I've often reflected on this in the past weeks as I've been following the presidential campaign: Very often, I thought it would have been great for both of these guys to sit down and be force-fed a couple of dozen episodes of Star Trek.

Patrick Stewart

#38. Jeb Bush is getting his presidential campaign in gear. Last week he said he supports a path to citizenship for immigrants. He said, 'I believe in an America where hard work and dedication can lead to any job that your brother and dad once had.'

Conan O'Brien

#39. There is no excitement anywhere in the world, short of war, to match the excitement of the American presidential campaign.

Theodore White

#40. I am a political junkie. During a presidential campaign, I will often buy a couple of newspapers a day just to keep up.

John Ortberg

#41. A presidential campaign may easily degenerate into a mere personal contest, and so lose its real dignity. There is no indispensable man.

Woodrow Wilson

#42. During the last presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama, asked why he was not wearing a flag pin, answered that it represented "a substitute" for "true patriotism." Bad move. Months later, Obama quietly beat a retreat and began wearing the flag on his lapel. He does so still.

Charles Krauthammer

#43. You may never have heard of Joseph Overton and his proverbial window but you most certainly have heard the Republican presidential campaign in 2015 year not just flinging the window open but shattering all its glass.

Rachel Maddow

#44. Sen. Joe Biden, on the day of announcing his candidacy for president of the United States, called Barack Obama the first mainstream African-American who is articulate, bright, and ... clean. I think we've seen the shortest presidential campaign in history.

Jay Leno

#45. I can imagine people in Third World countries looking at, you know, someone like Hillary Clinton raising $35 million for her presidential campaign that goes to really, you know, nonproductive means, and they see that, and they just - it's just really immoral, I believe.

Cindy Sheehan

#46. During my 2004 presidential campaign, I was fond of saying that it was high time for the Christian right to meet the right Christians.

Al Sharpton

#47. NO POLITICIAN COULD devote as many evenings to poker and whiskey as had Henry Clay and expect a decorous presidential campaign.

Amy S. Greenberg

#48. When I hit the skins they all say, 'Damn Kane ...
You knock out the Bush like a presidential campaign!'

Big Daddy Kane

#49. The legions of reporters who cover politics don't want to quit the clash and thunder of electoral combat for the dry duty of analyzing the federal budget. As a consequence, we have created the perpetual presidential campaign.

Hugh Sidey

#50. Let's be clear about what this [presidential] campaign is about. It's not about Donald Trump, he's an entertaining guys, he's the greatest show on Earth.

Marco Rubio

#51. Time magazine interviewed Bill Clinton about the current presidential campaign, and he claimed he had to ask Hillary to marry him three times before she said yes. Then Hillary was like, 'Yeah. That wasn't me.'

Jimmy Fallon

#52. She had been skeptical about change since Obama's first presidential campaign, when it seemed everyone was eager to change. She knew then, and has know all along, that most people hate to change though they're happy to see others do it.

Dennis Vickers

#53. In presidential campaign I released a 65-page file from the Syracuse University College of Law that showed poor grades, back in college, also. If I were plagiarizing consistently, my grades would have been better.

Joe Biden

#54. Do you know who is ready to go with the presidential campaign? Jeb Bush. Jeb already has plans to end the war in Iraq that his brother started. All he needs is a hot tub time machine.

David Letterman

#55. Whatever happened during the French presidential campaign will leave no hard feelings. I perfectly understand why Angela Merkel supported Nicolas Sarkozy because of the action they have taken together, even though I have questioned its results, and because of their shared political sensibility.

Francois Hollande

#56. It was a long, difficult summer of 2004. That was a leap year, so several things happened - the Olympics and presidential election. And right in the middle of the election campaign - and I don't think this was an accident - the 9/11 Commission delivers its report.

Michael Hayden

#57. We are creating a political demolition derby, not a presidential debate. Those strange impulses in the American soul that have produced mud wrestling and The Gong Show seem to have claimed the national campaign.

Hugh Sidey

#58. I try to avoid saying anything positive about any presidential candidate for fear that if I actually like them then I will kill their campaign.

Jack Abramoff

#59. The 2007 Labor campaign was the most presidential in Australian history, with a slogan - Kevin07 - exceeded in its banality only by its success.

Richard Flanagan

#60. When a presidential candidate is publicly requesting help from the Russians, you know that there is something seriously going wrong in the USA.

Steven Magee

#61. Natural Texas politicians make terrible, terrible presidential candidates. Phil Gramm, I remember the 'Phil Gramm for President' campaign. I thought that was the worst thing in the history of the world, but Rick Perry was possibly worse.

Gail Collins

#62. One of the presidential campaigns unveiled more of an infrastructure in place for the next contest than was previously thought to be present, with a spokesperson saying that one of the campaign's strengths is that it does not make an effort to draw attention to with every asset.

New York Times

#63. A little tough talk in the midst of a campaign or as part of a presidential debate cannot obscure a record of 30 years of being on the wrong side of defense issues.

Dick Cheney

#64. We often feel a twinge of guilt over our own fascination with presidential candidates' wives - as if we are secretly reading the 'Star' for our campaign information instead of the policy journals.

Naomi Wolf

#65. From 1976, Judy to 1996, we had six presidential elections. And it was run under the Campaign Finance Reform Act of 1974. In all six of them, every candidate agreed to limits of what he could collect in contributions and what he could spend in seeking a nomination. And they all abided by it.

Mark Shields

#66. I'm married to Kevin, a photographer whose career has put him on the campaign trail with presidential candidates and sent him on assignment to far-flung places for long periods of time. It was sometimes rough when our children were small, and I was beginning to write in earnest.

Nancy Horan

#67. Even at the end of a presidential election campaign, we have no way to know what Mitt Romney really believes.

Carl Bernstein

#68. In the 1960 campaign, Arthur Schlesinger wrote of Adlai Stevenson, who already lost twice as the party's presidential nominee, He has been away from power too long; he gives me an odd sense of unreality, a certain frivolity, distractedness, over-interest in words and phrases.

David Pietrusza

#69. Presidential and vice-presidential debates are not about campaign staff or consultants, and it is high time we as a people took control and reminded them and their candidates of that important fact.

Bob Barr

#70. Remember, the first presidential candidate to reject public financing for both the primary and general election was ... Barack Obama, in 2008. He did it, in spite of a flat pledge to the contrary, because his campaign saw that it could vastly outspend John McCain.

Jeff Greenfield