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Peter Hart, The Pollster, Has A Question When He Asks About Presidential Or Vice Presidential Candidates, What Kind Of A Neighbor Would They Be? And Several Democrats - George W. Bush Was Always Seen To Be A Good Friendly Neighbor Who Would Pick Up The Newspapers If You Were Out Of Town Or Check Your Mail.

-Mark Shields

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Peter Hart, The Pollster,

Mark Shields

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Peter Hart, The Pollster, Has A Question When He Asks About Presidential Or Vice Presidential Candidates, What Kind Of A Neighbor Would They Be? And Several Democrats - George W. Bush Was Always Seen To Be A Good Friendly Neighbor Who Would Pick Up The Newspapers If You Were Out Of Town Or Check Your Mail.

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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.

Iraq Is In A Civil War. There Is No Road In That Country That Is Safe.

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

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.

If You're On The Other Side From Me, You're Not Simply Wrong Or Ill-informed Or Mistaken. We Don't Share The Same Country, The Same Values. You May Not Be The Same Kind Of An American I Am.

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

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.

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

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

Peter Hart, The Pollster, Has A Question When He Asks About Presidential Or Vice Presidential Candidates, What Kind Of A Neighbor Would They Be? And Several Democrats - George W. Bush Was Always Seen To Be A Good Friendly Neighbor Who Would Pick Up The Newspapers If You Were Out Of Town Or Check Your Mail.

90 Percent Of American Schoolchildren Are In Public Schools. And The Emphasis On Private Schools And Charter Schools And Parochial Schools Is Not Unimportant.

I Mean, This Is A Group [republicans], Don't Forget, That Gave Its Presidential Straw Ballot To Ron Paul, Ron Paul, And Rand Paul And Rand Paul. So, They Have Abandoned What - Their Libertarian Values And Instincts To Embrace [donald] Trump.

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.

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.

The Republicans Are Looking At A Country That Is Going To Be A Majority Minority Country In Just Over A Generation. And They Are An Increasingly White Party.

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.

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.

Barack Obama Did Get A Higher Percentage Of The Vote Than Anybody Has In This Country In 20 Years. I Mean, It Was A Resounding Victory. I Mean, Whether His Core Constituency Was 20 Percent Or What, His Electoral Constituency, Which Is How We Measure Elections, Was 53 Percent, Which Was, You Know, Historically High, The Highest Of Any Democrat, Other Than Franklin Roosevelt And Lyndon Johnson.

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

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.

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

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

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.

[donald] Trump Is Instructive.for Trump, It Was That The Global Economy And The International World Order Were Failing Regular People.

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

Let's Not Pretend That All Of A Sudden, This Is Some New System.

There's Never Been A Sense Of Public Service About Donald Trump.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Basically, Global Capitalism, Basically To Support It, Or Is It To Be Opposed? Is International Order To Be Supported, Or Is It To Be Opposed? Republicans Have Taken A Very Clear Line.

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

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

[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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

[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.

The Fact Is That It's The Most Dangerous Place To Be On The Political Scale Is To Brand Those On The Other Side As Racist. That's The Atomic Bomb. That's The Nuclear Weapon Of An American.

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.

You Want A Leader, Western Leader, English-speaking? Mitt Romney.

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 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.

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

Russia Is A Country That Has Supported, Propped Up The Worst Of Anti-democratic Regimes In The Middle East, That Has Practiced - Mistreated Its Own Press, Mistreated Its Own Civil Society, And Economic Intimidation Of Its Neighbors, Including Invasion Of Its Neighbors.i Mean, This Is The One Country On The Face Of The Earth With The Capacity To Obliterate The United States.

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

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

Identity Politics

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.

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.

Character Is Destiny And Character Is Important To American Campaigns.

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.

The Democratic Party Is A Coalition. Its Strength And Its Weakness Is, It's A Coalition Of Interest Groups, Caucuses. It's A Lot Less Homogeneous Than The Republican Party, Where People Tend To Believe The Same Things And Oftentimes Look Alike.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

I Think Donald Trump Is Obviously The More Colorful, The More Flamboyant, The More Dominant Personality.

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

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.

[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.

Donald Trump Is An Independent Presidential Candidate Who Ran On The Republican Label. He Really Did. He Took It Over. He Transformed It Into His Image, In His Likeness.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

He Who Speaks The Truth Must Keep One Foot In The Stirrup.

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

Donald Trump Picked A Remarkably Nice Guy In Mike Pence.

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.

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

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.

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

American Values

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

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

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

Hillary Clinton Should Get A Bounce Out Of Her Convention, I Mean A Bounce In The Polls. I Think It's Probably Conceded That Donald Trump Got About A Three-point Bounce Out Of His Conventions. He's Closed The Gap That Much.

For The Democrats, They're Trying To Avoid Having The [ben] Sanders- [hillary] Clinton Debate Over And Over Again. But, To Some Degree, They're Sentenced To That Debate.

Politics, They All - Talked To The Insiders.

Donadld Trump Loves Loyalty.

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.

But The People At Home If We're Doing A Town Meeting Or A Town Format. You Have To Answer The Question That Is Asked. And What People At Home Are Gauging How Does This Candidate Respond To The Questioner? Do They Show Respect To The Questioner? Do They Try To Understand Why The Questioner Is Asking That? Do They Respond To The Question? Is There A Human Connection Between The Two? It's Where Barack Obama Beat Mitt Romney In 2012. He Lost The Voters On Who Was A Stronger Leader, Who Had A Vision For The Future, But On Who Cares About People Like Me, He Trounced Mitt Romney.

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

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.

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

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

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

John Mccain Was Victimized In The South Carolina Primary.

The President Has To Have The Trust, Earn The Trust, Maintain The Trust Of People In Order To Lead. And There's Nothing That Will Lose It Quicker Than A Sense That He's In It For A Quick Buck.

Sometimes, You Just Let The Country Have Its Way, And You Don't Try To Determine The Shape Of The Country. You Sort Of Modestly Step Back And Let The Country Figure Out What It Believes.

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

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

When You Have Got Military-style Assault Weapons And High-capacity Magazines, They're Intended For One Purpose. And That Is To Inflict As Much Damage On Human Beings In As Short As Time As Possible.

Assault Weapons

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.

Kevin Mccarthy, Who Is The House Majority Leader, Was Pretty Open. He Went Out And Recruited Candidates. And The Republicans In The House Have Paid A Price For It Ever Since, Because They Cannot Pass Anything Comprehensive Or Real Because Of The Freedom Caucus, Which Is The Child, The Product, The Progeny Of The Tea Party.

The People Who Are Rising, They're Super Ambitious. They Have Relationships With People Above Them. They Have Relationships, Hierarchical, Sort Of People Below Them. A Lot Of People Do Not Have Relationships Horizontally. And There's A Lot Of People Who Reach High Political Offices, But Who Are Weirdly Lonely, Weirdly Lacking In Intimacy Skills.

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

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.

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.

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.

[dwight Eisenhower Was ] A Citizen Of The World.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Donald Trump Is Not An Unintelligent Man.

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.

All About Midterm Elections Is Turnouts. And Turnout Is Measured By Enthusiasm, Intensity, How Interested Are People. And President Obama - Candidate Obama Had It On His Side In 2008. The Democrats Had It On Their Side In 2006. The Enthusiasm, The Intensity, The Passion Was All On Their Side.

Every Measurement Of Where You Have More Public Confidence In Creating Jobs, American Prosperity, Controlling Crime, Health Care, Providing Education, All Of These Standards, Bill Clinton Has Considerably Higher Marks... The Sole Exception Is On Protecting Taxes, Which Is Initially His Attack.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Steve Bannon Went To The Conservative Political Action Conference And He Said That There Was A Very Important Historical Turning Point, Getting Rid Of The Trans-pacific Partnership. And The Republican Party Has Stood For That For As Long As I Have Been Alive.

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.

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.

I Think Donald Trump Is Not Going To Be Impeached [in A ] Month. Let's Not Close Out Possibilities.i Do Think That What's Happening Is Great And That People Are Active And People Are Just Involved In The Democratic Process.

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

There Are People Who Know Hillary Clinton Who Tell Wonderful Stories About Her, How Likable She Is, How Funny She Is; 99 Percent Of American People Don't - Have Never Seen That Side Of Her.

The Problem Is That What Donald Trump Said, If You Take It Literally Now, Is Cause For Anxiety And Nervousness.

[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.

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.

John Kerry's Biography Was Central To His Campaign.

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?

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

At A Time When The Public Is Sour On Politicians, Have No Use For Them, Bill Clinton Has Risen To A Different Level. Bill Clinton Is Endlessly Interesting.

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.

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 Other Thing That Has Changed - And This Is More Detailed To Cpac Than The General Republican Party - Is They Have Always Been An Outsider, Ann Coulter, Sort Of Protest Style, A Little Ruder Than Most Republicans. And This Goes Back All The Way To [ronald] Reagan.

The Charter School Is A Possibility, An Alternative In Certain Circumstances, But Not In Most, And Not In Most Places, And Not - Most Parents Don't Have Either The Time, The Inclination Or The Aptitude To Sit And Go Through Sifting What School And What Is Available And What The Options Are.

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.

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.

The Democrats Have To Do What He Did When [rahm Emanuel] Was Chairman Of The Democratic House Campaign Committee, Recruit Veterans, Recruit Football Players, Recruit Business People. And I Think That's What The Job Of The New Party Chair Has To Be.

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.

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.

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

Smear Campaigns

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!

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.

Americans Don't Like Powerful Figures Who Punch Down, That Is, Who Pick On Someone Less Powerful And Less Able To Speak For Themselves Than They Are.

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.

Franklin Roosevelt Ran On A Balanced Budget In 1932, And The Greatest President, Certainly, Of The 20th Century. So The Idea That You Lay Out A Predicate Right Now, Donald Trump Has Recreated The Republican Party In His Image.

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

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

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.

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

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.

I Think This Was As Good A Democratic Convention [ This Was My 24th Convention] As I Have Seen Since The 1976 Convention, Which Nominated Jimmy Carter.i Just Thought It Was A Spectacularly Successful Convention. I Don't Think Hillary Clinton's Speech Was Spectacular, But I Don't Think She's A Spectacular Speaker.

You Really Have One Bite At The Apple.

The Democrats Are Now An Upscale Party.

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

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

Human Trafficking

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

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

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 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.

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

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