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It's Fine To Be An Activist, But You're Not - If You're Not Putting Up Candidates, If You're Not Getting Political, If You're Not In Your Party, Then You're Probably Not Going To Have Long-term Change. You Will Probably Dissipate.

-Mark Shields

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It's Fine To Be

Mark Shields

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It's Fine To Be An Activist, But You're Not - If You're Not Putting Up Candidates, If You're Not Getting Political, If You're Not In Your Party, Then You're Probably Not Going To Have Long-term Change. You Will Probably Dissipate.

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The Democrats Are Standing On One Side, And The Republicans Are Playing Games On The Other. Both Sides Are Playing Games.

I Think That The People That Are Publicly On Hillary Clinton's Short List All Are Very Congenial People. They're Not People With Personality Or Captain Queeg Problems.

The Single Worst Campaign Slogan I Have Ever Heard, Is Hillary's Clinton, "i'm With Her," It Means Nothing. It Absolutely Means Nothing To Anybody. I Mean, It's About Appealing - And It Says Nothing About Anybody's Life, About The Country.

The Failure To Invest In Our Public Transportation And Public Life, I Think, Is A Scandal And A Shame, And It Should Be A National Embarrassment.

Richard Nixon Said It Best. It Makes No Difference Whether They Hold Your Nose Or Whether They Go Would Through A Wall To Vote For You. It Counts The Same With The X.

It's Tempting To Remember That The Tea Party Had A Peak And Then The Republican Party Establishment Sort Of Beat It Back Down. And So These Things Are Won In A Day.

In The Past, In Order To Continue As A Candidate, A Serious Candidate, You Had To Be In The Top Three Finishes In Iowa. You Had To Be In The Top Two Out Of New Hampshire. All Our Presidents Elected In The Past Half-century Finished Either First Or Second In New Hampshire And In The Top Three In Iowa. That Changed With The Citizens United, When We Gave Unlimited Amounts Of Money.

If I Were John Bolton, I'd Take Great Consolation In The Words Of My Principal Supporter On The Committee, Who Gave A Ringing Endorsement, Which Was, There Is No Evidence That He Has Broken Any Laws.

Mitt Romney Was The Man Who Stood Up To Donald Trump Early, Hard, Never Wavered.

John Kerry's Biography Was Central To His Campaign.

Human Trafficking Is A Human Tragedy. It's An Outrage Against Any Decent People.

Human Trafficking

Ronald Reagan Four Times Accepted The Limits In Contributions Of What He Could Take, What He Could Spend, And The Public Funding For The General Elections. So I Just Think The Idea That It Didn't Work, And Didn't Work - It Did Work. It Worked Brilliantly.

I Do Think, Over The Last Years, A Lot Of Republicans Have Decided It's Not Working, What The Party Believed In, Free Trade, Global Capitalism, Open Borders.

Donald Trump Defies Gravity. And So I Guess He Has To Be Donald Trump. It's Gotten Him So Far.

The Measure Of Our Progress Is Not Whether We Add More To The Abundance Of Those Who Have Much, But Whether, As Franklin Roosevelt Said, We Provide Enough For Those Who Have Too Little.

I Thought What Steve Bannon Said Was Probably More Chilling Or More Threatening Than Anything The President [donald Trump]says, I Mean, Because He Said, It's A Constant Day. We Have To Defeat The Press.

The Problem With Smear Campaigns Is That Too Often They Work.

Smear Campaigns

Donald Trump Is Writing A Different Theme, Which Is It's Midnight In America And That Things Are Bad, And They're Bleak, And They're Gloomy And They're Doomy, And The Only Thing That Is Going To Save You Is Someone With The Authority And Power Of Somebody Like Me.

Authority And Power

Being A Party Chair, You Really Have A Chance To Make A Difference. But What The Democrats Have To Do Is Recognize And Accept The Fact That They're At Their Lowest Point [in 2017] Since 1928 In The United States House Of Representatives And Their Lowest Point Since 1925 In States.

Democrats, If They're Smart And They're Not Brain-dead, Are Doing Two Things Right Now.they're Having Self-deprecating Humor Written For Them. There Was No Humor In Cleveland. And They Are Not Making This A Donald Trump.

Every Republican Candidate In The Country Is Going To Be Asked Whether In A Debate Or Where Else, By Opponents Or By The Press, Do You Consider Donald Trump To Be An Appropriate Role Model For The Children Of Our State? And It Just - As Far As The Women's Vote Reported On In Georgia, It Makes It So, Not Simply Difficult. It Makes It Almost Impossible For Somebody With Self-respect, Who Has A Mother Or Sister Or A Daughter, Somebody Like This In Abraham Lincoln's Chair.

There Is No Question That, In 1980, Ronald Reagan Had Been Portrayed As A War-monger, Somebody Who Couldn't Do Anything Off A Script. And The One Debate With President Jimmy Carter, He Stood Toe-to-toe And Reassured People That He Wasn't Bound And Determined To Start World War Iii On The Spot And Could Make A Coherent Statement.

I Think The Republican Party Is Cursed. And It's Cursed Itself.

I Think An Increasing Number Of Republicans Are Perplexed And Actually Nervous About Donald Trump And Russia, Nervous In The Sense That He Is Gratuitously Giving Democrats The National Security Advantage, That They're Standing Up For The Country.

There Is Nothing More Basic To Our Democracy Than The Right To Participate In Electing Our Political Leaders.

One Of The First Things Every Press Secretary Assures You Is, The Boss Has A Wonderful Sense Of Humor, Because Not To Have A Sense Of Humor Is Considered Flagrantly Un-american.

Donald Trump Is Not An Unintelligent Man.

The Corporations Who Invest In Lobbyists, It Pays In Terms Of Tax Loopholes, Tax Subsidies, All The Rest. It Pays. Clearly, The Money Has A Big Effect.

I Think Guantanamo, Has Been Synonymous With The Staining Of American Values And American Legal Tradition.

American Values

[dwight Eisenhower Was ] A Citizen Of The World.

Dwight Eisenhower

White Working-class Voters Or Working-class Voters Have Felt Abandoned, Have Felt, In Many Senses, Disparaged By The Political Leadership Of America.

Donald Trump Is Appealing To The Basest, The Most Selfish And The Most Literally Un-american Of Instincts.

I Have My Disagreements With President Obama, But President Obama Has Run An Amazingly Scandal-free Administration, Not Only He Himself, But The People Around Him. He's Chosen People Who Have Been Pretty Scandal-free.

It's Not Fair That A Palestinian Child Cannot Grow Up In A State Of Their Own, Living Their Entire Lives In The Presence Of A Foreign Army That Controls The Movements Of The Parents Every Single Day.

When You Think Of Pristine Preservation Of America, You Immediately Think Of Tulsa And Oklahoma.

But Take The Russia Issue. You Open Up The Convention, And You Have Got A Report That The Democratic Party Has Been Hacked By The Russians, E-mails, The E-mails Of The Democratic Party, Which Is A Headline And Words That You Don't Want, If You're Hillary Clinton's Campaign.and Donald Trump Immediately Takes The Story And Basically Steps On The Advantage He Has And Say, Well, The Russians, Who Am I To Tell [vladimir] Putin? You Know, The Russians Ought To Come In And Continue To Hack Our - And Find Out Where The E-mails Are.

The White House, As Warren Harding Said, And I Think Accurately, Is An Alchemist. We Find Out The Strengths, The Weaknesses And The Smarts And The Dumbs Of Whoever Those Occupants Are Under The Pressure Of The Presidency.

I Don't Hear Any Clear, Coherent Message [from Democrats]. I Mean, When You're A Party Out Of Power, It's The Time To Be A National Party Chair.

I Do Think That Republicans Are Flirting With Their Tax Cut, Which Has Always Been The Narcotic Of Republicans, That They In Fact Have To At Some Point, With Any Remote Pretense Of Candor, Abandon Any Pretense Of A Balanced Budget.i Mean, They Talk About - Because They Are Going To Finance The Tax Cut By Tax Cuts. That's How They're Going To Do It. And I Do Think That The Will Is There Right Now In The Congress To Act. I Think They Will Be As Close To Unity As You Will See On Capitol Hill This Year.

There Is Always Strength In Numbers. The More Individuals Or Organizations That You Can Rally To Your Cause, The Better.

For Many Years, We Have Had These Campaign Finance Reforms, And They Have Been Failures. Money Is More Coursing Through Our System Than Ever Before. Incumbents Have Used The Laws To Advantage Themselves. And One Of The Reasons I Think They Have Been Failures Is We Have Tried To Crush Down The Money In Places Like The Political Parties, And It Has Squished Out Into Opaque Super Pacs And Sort Of Hidden Channels.

The Lobbying Over China Most Favored Nation Trading Status Was Disgusting. There's No Way In Hell That Mfn Would Have Passed In '95, '96, '97, '98, '99, 2000 If All These Companies Hadn't Come In Flooding And Making Campaign Contributions And Ask For People's Support. That Drove The Debate. Every Year Was The Allure Of Corporate Dollars Flooding Into Members' Bank Accounts.

Hillary Clinton Has Emphasized That She Is Afflicted With Or Possessed Of The Responsibility Gene.

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Lee Atwater,[ronald] Reagan's Strategist, Had No Patience For Cpac, Because He Thought They Were Sort Of Wild And Immature, Basically.

Russia Today Is Nothing But A Propaganda Arm.

When The Party Holds The White House, All The Political Decisions Are Made In The White House. And Being A Party Chair, You're Just An Artifact.

[in Politics] When A Goes After B And There's A C, And D And A Q All Lined Up There, You Have No Idea Who's Going To Be The Beneficiary.

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As Long As Republicans Won't - Won't Raise Taxes And As Long As Democrats Won't In Any Way Make Entitlements Based On Need, Rather Than Just Across The Board, I Really Think That We're Doomed To This Deadlock.

[donald Trump] Stood Up And He Said, You Finally Have A President, You Finally Have A President. I Am The Future.and What Did He Get? Hosannas And Huzzahs And Genuflection. It Was A Total Takeover Of The Conservative Movement.

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Donald Trump Is To Traditional Values What I Am To Marathon Running.

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Politics Is A Contact Sport - A Question Of Accepting An Elbow Or Two.

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Hillary Clinton, At The End Of The Debate, What You Want Viewers To Say, Yes, She's Smart, She's Knowledgeable, But She's Not A Bad Egg, You Know? Not A Bad Egg Is A Pretty High Compliment In American Politics, Given The Toxic Atmosphere In Which We Currently Dwell.

By A 2-1 Margin, Voters Believe That Donald Trump Would Change Business As Usual In Washington, But By Almost As Large A Margin, They Believe That Hillary Clinton Would Be Better In A Crisis And Less Of A Decisive Margin She Cares About People Like Them.

President [john F.] Kennedy, After The Bay Of Pigs, Said To Turner Catledge Of The New York Times: I Wish You Had Written More, I Wish You Had Investigated More, Because It Might Have Saved The Country Of The Cataclysm Of The Bay Of Pigs.

All Politics Is Personal With President Trump. And That Carries With It Great, Great Problems.

Health Care, It's Going To Be Political. It's Going To Be, Let's Say, The Confluence Of The Politics And The Messy Implementation.

The Democrats Have Tried The War Against Women In The Past. It Didn't Really Have That Much Traction.

Benjamin Netanyahu Is No Winston Churchill. Whatever Else He, Is He's Not A Winston Churchill. He Basically Violated The Great Rule, Which Is It's Better To Mislead The People And To Lose An Election Than To Mislead The People And Win An Election.

When You Run For President Of The United States, Everybody Does The Same Thing In The Campaign-they Talk About Veterans, How Much They Admire Them, How Grateful They Are.

When The Size Of The Group Supporting Your Cause Reaches A Critical Mass, Any Legislator Or Elected Official Has To Pay Attention.

The Stated Objective And The Mission Of Vladimir Putin's Russia Is To Destabilize The North Atlantic Alliance.

I Thought Mike Pence, Upon Reflection To Me, Came Across A Little Bit Like Your Favorite Aunt Who Refuses, In Spite Of First-person Evidence That Grandpa Has Been Drunk And Disorderly In Public, That, Says, No, No, Grandpa Would Never Do That, Even Though Grandpa Is Being Taken Off In Handcuffs.

Donadld Trump Loves Loyalty.

The Pattern Of American Presidential Elections Is That The More Optimistic Candidate, Whether It's John Kennedy And Let's Get America Moving Again, Ronald Reagan, It's Morning In America, Or Barack Obama, Yes, We Can, Always Wins, Or Nearly Always Wins.

Democrats Can Have A Different Version Of The Line, Or They Can Just Say, No, We Are The Party Of International Peace And Activism, And We're The Party That's Going To Have A Civilized Capitalism.

The Democrats Are Now An Upscale Party.

Washington Is A City Of Money. It's A Flood Of Money.

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The Republicans Have, With Some Pride - George W. Bush Won The White House By Promising To Restore Dignity To The Oval Office. And They Were Or Presented Themselves As The Family - The Party Of Family Values.

[hillary] Clinton Is Much More Embracing Of The Global Economy And The International World Order. [ben] Sanders And [scott] Warren Are Much Less So.

I Do Think What The Tea Party Also Had Was Obamacare And The Unpopularity Of That, At Least At The Time. And So Whether There Is Something That Is Equally Unpopular And Equally Galvanizing That Is Almost Self-destructive From The Administration, That's Another Factor That We Will Wait And See.

The Advantage That Hospitals Have Over Other Institutions Is That Hospitals Are Community-based. You Can't Outsource Your Work; You Can't Move Your Emergency Department To Pakistan.

Donald Trump Picked A Remarkably Nice Guy In Mike Pence.

American Education Will Be Determined By The Quality Of American Public Education, And That's Public Schools That Are Available.

You Have To Understand That Republicans Are On Lockstep On One Issue. They Will Not Raise Taxes. Democrats Are In Lockstep On Another Issue, Pro-choice In All Cases On Abortion.

I Do Look Upon The Secretary Of Education's Primary Responsibility As The Quality Of Education That - And Improving The Education That Every Child In American Public Schools Receives.

The Organizing Principle Of The United States Defensive Foreign Policy Had Been Opposition To The Soviet Union. There Is No More Soviet Union.

Politics, They All - Talked To The Insiders.

I Think Hillary Clinton - First Of All, It's A Great Victory, Acknowledge It. She Has Made History.

The Tough Thing About A Campaign Being Over Is, You Lose Your Enemy.

That's The Job Of A Free Press Is To Hold The Lamp Up, To Investigate, To Hold Accountable. And Denying Access, As Sean Spicer Did , Is The First Step Toward A Dictatorship.

The Democrats Have An Economic Message That Is Directed At People At The Lower End. That Has Been Their Cornerstone. The Republicans Has Been More Upscale.

America Is Republican Until 5:00 Or 6:00 At Night.

It's Both Strategic, To Get People's Minds Off Other Things, And To Pick An Internal Enemy. It's Part Of [donald Trump's] Psychodynamics To Always Care About His Press Coverage Intensely. He's More Interested In That Than Anything Else.

There's No Question That There's Been A Breach In The Trust Between Urban - Especially Urban Community, African-american And Minority Communities And The Police In Major American Cities.

African American

Character Is Destiny And Character Is Important To American Campaigns.

Franklin Roosevelt Had A Pretty Clear Line. Ronald Reagan Had A Pretty Clear Line, People Who Rescue Parties.

If Donald Trump Does Lose, Being Revealed As This Bizarre Personality, Ted Cruz Is Not Going To Be What Republicans Are Looking For In 2020.

I Think That "arabs Coming Out In Droves" Is So Violative Jewish Values That Non-jews Admire So Much About Jewish People Throughout History, Of Welcoming The Stranger, Of Standing Up For The Outsider, Of Defending The Marginalized. This Was Classic Us Against Them. This Was The Narrowest And Meanest Of Politics, To Which Jews, Sadly And Tragically, Around The World Have Been Subjected To.

There Is No Tougher Job In America Than Being A Cop On The Beat In A Major City In This Country, Big And Brawling.

Americans Don't Like The Way Washington Operates. They Don't Like Washington. They Don't Like The Way Things Are Going.

Donald Trump Is Sounding The Same Theme He Has Sounded Since May Or June Of 2015.

You Really Have One Bite At The Apple.

We Had The Clip Of [donald] Trump Saying: I'm Not President Of The Globe. I'm President Of The United States.[ronald] Reagan Would Have Never Said That. [dwight] Eisenhower Would Have Never Said That, Because He Would Have Said, Yes, I'm President Of The United States, But It's In Our Interests To Be Securing A World Order.

Dwight Eisenhower

Let's Give The President Some Due Here. They Had A Mess, And He Fixed It, And They Mobilized A Lot Of Authority, And They Did It.

Clinton's Major Problem, And The Two Aren't Separable Really Because There Is Hope In The Country, The Hope - - Optimism Has Slipped Dramatically, Make No Mistake About Every Measurement Shows That. But The Hope Is Still There. Hope Is With Him. People Want Change. They See Him As The Best Chance For Change.

It Doesn't Have To Be The Same Line That We Have Had For The Last 40 Years, Because That Clearly Isn't Working On Any Level. But You Have Got To Have A Pretty Clear Line On This Crucial Issue.

Campaigns Are Fun. Campaigns Are Police Escorts, They're Airplanes, They're Crowds, They're Balloons, They're Bands, A Lot Of Fun. You Speak In Vague Generalities. You Get Applause For Slogans. And Then Governing Comes. And Governing Is Tedious And It's Difficult An It's Time-consuming And It Demands Your Attention. And Policy Isn't Vague Generalities. It's Specifics And It's Based On Knowledge.

Donald Trump Has Taken Over The Republican Party. He's Transformed The Republican Party.

Drones Are Sort Of The Perfect Weapon For A Country That Doesn't Want To Go To War. It Only - There's No Fingerprint. There's No Direct Involvement. There's Human Beings Killed On The Other End. You Never See Them. You Don't Have To Worry About Them. You Don't Have To Meet Their Widows. It's Sort Of An Antiseptic Warfare.

I Saw Money Change Votes.i Mean, They Just Seem Unaware Of This, That Money Is Something - If They Want To See The Appearance Of Corruption, All They Had To Do Was Look In Las Vegas Last Weekend.

If Mitt Romney Had Got The Percentage Ronald Reagan Did Of Hispanics, He Would Have Defeated Barack Obama.

The Republicans, They Are In The Danger Of Rooting For The Country To Fail. They Look Bad That Way, I Mean, And I Want To Say To Them, Cheer Up, Republicans. Eventually, Things Will Get Worse.

The Person You're Choosing Is Going To Be 90 Feet Down The Hall For Four Years. That's A Pretty Intimate And Close Relationship, And It Better Be Somebody You're Comfortable With, You Like, You Trust, You Look Forward To Seeing, Not Someone You're Coming Up With Creative Ideas On How To Avoid.

There Is Always Strength In Numbers

Strength In Numbers

Immigrants Have Been The Sustenance And The Survival And The Treasure Of America.

To Me, The Fundamental Thing - Well, I Guess I See A Lot Of People Debating In The Wrong Way. A Lot Of The Debate Is, Should We Go To The Coasts, Should We Go To The Center, Should We Go To The Left, Should We Go To The Right?

It's Interesting How Identity Politics And Ann Coulter-style Tactics Have Now Blossomed. But They Were Always There In Cpac.

Identity Politics

[donald] Trump, He - You Know, Buy American, Buy American, Anti-free Trade, And Got Big Cheers. They're Waving Russian Flags, Probably Partly As A Joke. But, Still, The Party Has Become An Ethnic Nationalist Party.

Donald Trump, I Hate To Tell People Who Are Concerned About It, Is Not Going To Be Impeached. The American People Believe In Giving Somebody A Fair Chance. He's A New President. There Have Been Troubles, There Have Been Problems.

The Studies That Show The Reason Washington Real Estate Is Booming And There Are So Many Lobbyists In Town, It Does Pay.

George Washington Was The President Who Could Never Tell A Lie, And Richard Nixon Was The President Who Could Never Tell The Truth. Donald Trump Is Truly The President Who Can't Tell The Difference.

Telling The Truth

John Mccain Was Victimized In The South Carolina Primary.

There's Nothing Wrong With Being Organized.things That Change History Tend To Be Organized.

I'm Not Sure Betsy Devos Has Ever Spent A Day In A Public School. And I Don't - I'm Pretty Sure Donald Trump Hasn't.

I Think She [hillary Clinton] Would Be Far Superior To President [barack] Obama, Who Is Basically Remote, Aloof And Not Involved With - He Doesn't Deal With Members Of Congress.

In The 2004 Presidential Election, We Saw A Wonderful Example Of Citizens Making Contributions. In Fact, Individual Giving To Both The Kerry And Bush Campaigns Was The Highest In Our Nation's History.

America's Exceptionalism, American Leadership, The American Model, The American Values Are Not [first With Donald Trump] - They're Something That End At The Border.

Now Republicans Are A More Interventionist Party Than They Have Been At Any Time Since George W. Bush Left Office.

Donald Trump Manages To Personalize Everything. He Brings Chaos. He Will Not Admit That He's Ever Made A Mistake, That He's Ever Been Wrong.

[democrats] Have Got To Start Winning Elections. That Involves Not Some Great Idea, But It Also Involves Recruiting Candidates. And Rahm Emanuel, The Mayor Of Chicago, Who Has Given Obnoxiousness A New Definition In His Personal Behavior, Oftentimes In His Dealings With The Press, Had A Very Good Point.

Everyone Has To Take Donald Trump Seriously, And I Think That's What We're Seeing.

Tim Kaine Didn't Come Across Authentic. It Wasn't Good. And It Was - It Just Really - I Think, For Short-term Benefit, I Think The Democrats Tarnished The Brand, Which Is An Awfully Good Brand.

The Economy Of The United States Gross Domestic Product Doubled From 1996 To 2015, Doubled, More Than, $8.8 Trillion To $17.1 Trillion. And The Median Household Income Went Down.

I Am Struck The Whole Litany Of People, Especially Of That Era, Who Were Involved In Some Scandal Or Another. Some Of It Was Sexual. Some Of It Was More Financial. And It Was Just All Concentrated In A Lot Of People All At Once.

The Reality Is That The Republicans Twice Had Mitt Romney As A Potential Nominee. They Chose Him In 2008 - 2012. In 2008 And 2012, He Had Been The Most Get Tough On Illegal Immigrants, On Undocumented Immigrants, Illegals, As He Called Them, Accused John Mccain Of Wanting To Give Them Social Security Checks, Accused Mike Huckabee Selling Out To Them With The Dream Act In Arkansas, Was Really The Most Strident.

Everybody Who Served In John Kerry's Boat Under His Command Save One Has Stood With Him.

The Problem Is That Every Study I'm Aware Of, Which Is Probably Not That Many, Has Indicated That A Dollar Spent In Preparation And Avoidance Of Natural Disasters Is Worth $15 That Is Spent In Relief. But There's No Political Payoff For Preparation. So, Who Benefits? I Mean, The Governor Or Senator Or The President? Bill Clinton At Oklahoma City, His Performance There Helped Him Enormously. And There Really Hasn't Been Any Regulation That Would, In Fact, Interfere With Environmental Disaster.

Something Really Serious Has Shifted In The Minds Of Republicans And Certainly Others.

We Have Weakened The Parties And Strengthened All The Special Interests.

The Uncritically Admiring Supporters And Friends Of The Prime Minister [benjamin Netanyahu], In Whose Ranks I Certainly Don't Include David [brooks], But Include Charles Krauthammer, The Columnist, And Mike Huckabee, The Former Governor Of Arkansas, Insist On Comparing Him To The Incomparable Leader Of The British Forces In Country In Part Of - During World War Ii.

Once I Accuse You Of Racist, I Have Demonized You, And It Means Any Future Collaboration, Cooperation Between Us Is A Sign Of My Moral Deficiency, If I Would Deal With Someone Like That. It's A Terrible Thing To Do.

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.

People In The White House Work Hard, Whatever Administration. They Get Rewarded In Psychic Income, A Sense That They Are Involved In Something Bigger Than Themselves, That It's Important.

If An Abduction Is Reported, It Is Dealt With In The Same Way As A Kidnap.

I Think It's Fair To Say That Donald Trump Was Born Without The Embarrassment Gene Or The Moral Reservation Gene.

Now The Republicans Have A Very Low-scale, By Economic Standards, Base. Donald Trump Has.

I Don't Think He Should Make Foreign Policy On The Basis Of Peak,but I Don't Think It Can Be Overstated That Israel Has Been An Embattled Democracy That Has Enjoyed The Bipartisan And Overwhelming Support Of Americans. It Has Been A Moral Force.

[donald Trump] Is Moved From The Enemy Being Barack Obama, Now Gone, Fading Is Hillary Clinton, And There Is No Question He's Chosen The Enemy.

The Democrats Have This High Level Of Expectation Of What Government Can Do.

You Can't Have Someone With A Pinkie Out There At The U.n. Or Any Other Place.

I Think Democrats Ought To Be Concerned, That The Party Has Become Almost Prideful About The College-educated Vote That It's Getting, The Support That Hillary Clinton Is Getting Against Donald Trump.

It's Fine To Be An Activist, But You're Not - If You're Not Putting Up Candidates, If You're Not Getting Political, If You're Not In Your Party, Then You're Probably Not Going To Have Long-term Change. You Will Probably Dissipate.

George Bush Says What John Kerry Did Was Noble. Yet He Sees Him Being Savaged By His Own Supporters.

I Think Any Advocate Who Is Effective Has Fully Acquainted Himself Or Herself With The Legislator They Are Going To Meet. Know What Committees They Are On, What Issues They Are Interested In, All In An Effort To Build A Bridge For Communicating With Them.

Gone Is Any Mention Of American Exceptionalism. I Happen To Believe That Twice, Three Times In The 20th Century, The United States Saved Western Democracy, Both World War - Both World Wars And The Cold War.

The Way To Solve All The Money In Politics Is Not To Pretend We Can Get Money Out Of Politics. That Will Never Happen. We Have To Channel It In Ways Where We Can See It And Hold It Accountable. And I Think The Parties Are The Best Vehicle For That.

That's What The Conservative Movement Has Become, Is Basically An Annex Of The [donald] Trump Campaign.

You've Got People Who Didn't Serve With John Kerry Saying They Did Serve With John Kerry In The Boat. With George Bush, We Can't Find Anybody Who Did Serve With Him.

There Is A Cleavage And A Divide In America Like I Have Never Seen Before.

Whether It's Her [ Hillary Clinton] Guarded Privacy Or Whatever Else, I Mean, There Has Got To Be Some Sense That This Is A Human Being That I Can Identify.

In A Strange Way, Hillary Clinton Was Helped And Victimized By Barack And Michelle Obama.michelle Obama Was Probably Better Than Barack Obama, If You Think About It.her Speech Is A Masterful, Masterful Speech. And She Delivered It In A Persuasively Conversational Tone.

The Strength Of Donald Trump As A Candidate - And I'm Not In Any Way Defending Moral Convictions Or Anything Of The Sort - Was That He Says What He Means, You Know Where He Stands.

Since The Election, Since The Formation Of A Government, The Death In Iraq Has Increased. The United States Stands By, Helpless To Do Anything About It. That's The Reality, Not George Bush's Revisionist History!

The Sheldon Adelsons, The Koch Brothers, The George Soroses, What We Want To Try To Do Is Force Them Into The Parties, Not So That Kasich Or Whoever Is Going To Straight To Them And Trying To Kiss Up To Special Interests, But So The Parties Have The Power And They Can Direct The Money.

Presidential Trust Is Something, That's Perishable And It's Precious. And Once A President Loses It, It's Not A Question Of Whether It's Conflict Of Interests Laws Or There Aren't Conflict Of Interests Laws.

Barack Obama Knows That America Cannot Be Strong Abroad Unless We Are Strong At Home. People The World Over Have Always Been More Impressed By The Power Of Our Example Than The Example Of Our Power.

My Church [catholisism] Is Hurting From Arrogance And From Its Indifference To The Suffering Of Children That Were Abused And The Inclination Of The Leadership To Protect The Institution, Rather Than The Children.

Critics Of Donald Trump Take Him Literally, But Not Seriously. His Supporters Take Him Seriously, But Not Literally.

I'm A Little Nervous About Public Funding. It's Better Than What We Got Now.

They're Still A Subject Beholden To Special Interests, But At Least They Have A National Constituency. At Least They Have To Think About National Majorities.

We're Not Being Invaded By Undocumented Immigrants Who Are Coming To Kill Police Officers And Commit Crimes. And I Don't Think Most Americans Think It's True.

Stronger Together Is, I Think, A Preposition And A Comparative Adjective, But It's Not Really An Action Verb Or What It Is.

This Is America, Where A White Catholic Male Republican Judge Was Murdered On His Way To Greet A Democratic Jewish Woman Member Of Congress, Who Was His Friend. Her Life Was Saved Initially By A 20-year Old Mexican-american Gay College Student, And Eventually By A Korean-american Combat Surgeon, All Eulogized By Our African American President.

The Argument Of Those Who Are Being Criticized At Any Time, The Civil Rights Movement Forward, The Anti-war Movement Forward, Is, It's Always Outside Agitators Doing It.

George W. Bush In 2000 Went To Private Financing For The Nomination, But He Accepted Public Funding In The General. And, Quite Frankly, So Did - It Was Broken In 2008, When Barack Obama Decided He Wasn't Going To Do That.

I'm Sure Little Marco [rubio] Didn't Think It Would Stick. I'm Sure Crooked Hillary [clinton] Didn't Think It Would Stick. These Labels Do Have A Certain Power To Them. And So We Will See How It Plays Out.

John Mccain Has Become The De Facto Running Mate Of George W. Bush.

Mitt Romney Looks Like A Secretary Of State. He Looks Like The Chancellor Of The Exchequer.

The Final Thing The Tea Party Had Was, They Fed Into The Philosophy That Donald Trump Now Embodies. So They Had A Different View Of How The World Should Be Governed. And So They Had A Lot Of Things That We Didn't Appreciate Going For Them As Time Went By.

The Tea Party Thing Is Only Apt In Some Ways. The Activism In The Town Halls, That Looks Superficially Like It. But What The Tea Party Did Was, They Went After The Party, The Republican Party, As Their Vehicle. And Parties Is How You Change History.

I Personally Believe That [donald Trump] Is Wrong On The Condition Of America.

As Bill Clinton Said So Eloquently At The Convention, During Vietnam There Was A Chance To Serve; There Was A Chance Not To Serve.

Big Money Buys Access In Washington, And Access Purchases Influence. It Is As Simple As That. And They Have Basically Given A Green Light, A Further Green Light, After Citizens United, To The Biggest Money To Have The Bigger Voice In Our Politics, And To Sound Out And Drown Out The Voice Of Just Ordinary Citizens.

If You Only Make Fights That You're Going To Win, There Would Be No Women's Vote In America, There Would Be No Civil Rights Laws In The Country.

I Believe Devoutly That The National Election Is The Closest Thing We Have To A Civic Sacrament Of Democracy. And I Really Do Think That Heed Must Be Paid, And When People Make A Decision, Those Who Are On The Other Side, Including Me, Accept It, For That Reason.

[the Republicans] Looked At Basically The Failed Wars And They Said, Oh, This, Us Being The Policeman Of The World, That Is Not Working.

Mitt Romney Looks Like A President. I Mean, He Really Does.

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Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

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