Democratic Candidate Quotes & Sayings

A lot of our Democratic consultants have fallen into the self-defeating prescription that the candidate that runs the most negative ads wins. I have a new theory: Positive is the new negative. — Martin O'Malley

He is racist, he's homophobic, he's xenophobic and he's a sexist. He's the perfect Republican candidate. [California Democratic Party chairman about Pat Buchanan.] — Bill Press

There's only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate. He's half African-American. Whether that will make any difference, I don't know. I haven't heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What's keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white? He doesn't want to appear like Jesse Jackson? We'll see all that play out in the next few months and if he gets elected afterwards. — Ralph Nader

One hundred thirty years after Abe Lincoln, re Republicans have got the anti-black vote and it's bigger than any Democratic Presidential candidate can cope with. — John Updike

Whether you voted for me or not, going through the Democratic process had made me a better candidate. I am a smarter, better candidate. — Andrew Cuomo

I think the Democratic electorate is similarly very energized. In both cycles we have new folks coming into the system who had previously been outside of the system, who may not even be Democrats. In both cycles we have a very well-known candidate who understands the process and a candidate who had to learn the rules. — Leah D. Daughtry

The Socialist Party will no longer be running a candidate for president. The Democratic Party is leading this country to Socialism much faster than we could ever hope to. — Norman Thomas

In a new poll of Democratic voters, presidential candidate Lincoln Chafee came in with zero percent support. Or in other words: We're all tied with presidential candidate Lincoln Chafee. — Jimmy Fallon

This is the dilemma of science-think and yet again a situation in which scientists simply shouldn't be such scientists. Bring in the professionals, and trust them when they tell you to invest in communication. It may be frustrating and seem like a frivolous waste of resources, but what's the alternative strategy - to assume that people are rational, thinking beings? There's a famous quote by Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, who heard a woman shout to him that all the thinking people of America were with him. He replied, "That's not going to be enough, Madam; I need a majority of the public. — Randy Olson

When recruiting candidates for the House of Representatives, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) looks for aspirants to raise so much money, so early - $250,000 in the first quarter the candidate has declared - that it's almost impossible to do without a massive personal or family bank account. — Christopher L. Hayes

The next little thing about this vote-for-the-lesser-evil trick, of course - and this is no secret to anyone anymore - is that it drives all the "serious" candidates toward what is commonly referred to as the "moderate center," even if these serious candidates aren't, in fact, moderate or centrist in any meaningful sense and the so-called center moves further to the right with each election cycle. For nearly two decades now this process has been steadily advancing on the Democratic side, as liberals are trained to accept the idea that the national majority will never accept a true labor party, or any candidate perceived as "soft" on defense. — Matt Taibbi

The Boston Globe is reporting that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry used to date actress Morgan Fairchild but it didn't work out. Apparently she couldn't handle dating someone with bigger hair then she had. — Jay Leno

There is something democratic about grass-roots, widespread money support. There is something anti-democratic about one person propping up a candidate who can't make it. — Ari Fleischer

The democratic race is really boring when the media is basically writing stories and spending money to ask questions in a poll about somebody who is not even a declared candidate. — Dana Perino

I am the Democratic Party's candidate for president who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters - and the church does not speak for me. — John F. Kennedy

The BJP is an optimistic party. Our strength and our democratic values are such that even a poor person from a backward section - like me - has been nominated as a Prime Ministerial candidate. — Narendra Modi

I stand before you today as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency of the United States. I am not the candidate of black America, although I am black and proud. I am not the candidate of the women's movement of this country, although I am a woman, and I am equally proud of that. I am not the candidate of any political bosses or special interests. I am the candidate of the people. — Shirley Chisholm

At Rome there were nothing even vaguely resembling modern political parties - although given the stifling impact of these, this may well have made it more rather than less democratic than many countries today - and each candidate for office competed as an individual. Only rarely did they advocate specific policies, although commenting on issues of current importance was more common. In the main voters looked more for a capable individual who once elected could do whatever the State required. — Adrian Goldsworthy

What sort of job can you hold in America in which it is safe to hold the personal conviction that same-sex marriage is wrong? The answer: there is no such job. Except Democratic presidential candidate in 2008. Then you're fine. — Ben Shapiro

You can't say Hillary Clinton is not evolving as a candidate. And boy is she trying very hard to move to where the Democratic base is. — Chuck Todd

If you have reservations about the system and want to change it, the democratic argument goes, do so within the system: put yourself forward as a candidate for political office, subject yourself to the scrutiny and the vote of fellow citizens. Democracy does not allow for politics outside the democratic system. In this sense, democracy is totalitarian. — J.M. Coetzee

Democratic candidate John Kerry on Tuesday chose fellow Senator John Edwards to be his running mate. Asked about Edwards' lack of foreign policy experience, Kerry revealed his new campaign slogan, 'I Promise Not to Die.' — Dennis Miller

If American politics does not look to you like a joke, a tragic dance; if you have enough blindness left in you, on any plea, on any excuse, to vote for the Democratic Party or the Republican Party (for at present machine and party are one), or for any candidate who does not stand for a new era,
then you yourself pass into the slide of the magic-lantern; you are an exhibit, a quaint product, a curiosity of the American soil. You are part of the problem. — John Jay Chapman

Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards used to claim that there are "two Americas," the rich and the poor. If Democrats have their way, there will be two Latin Americas, both of them poor. You're living in one of them right now. — Ann Coulter

And that John F. Kennedy uttered the first variation of "ask not what your country can do for you" in Detroit on Labor Day in 1960. So Detroit was really central to Democratic politics United States. Every Democratic candidate would start their fall campaigns in Cadillac Square. — David Maraniss

Now the fact that terrorists throughout the world see this as an opportunity to defeat the United States, we have to be - and every Democratic candidate, even those who opposed us going in, now say we just simply can't cut and run. — Al D'Amato

If I were a white candidate, I'd have won the Democratic nomination. — Jesse Jackson

be fair, when I was young, the elections could not have been less interesting; the mediocrity of the 'political offerings' was almost surprising. A centre-left candidate would be elected, serve either one or two terms, depending how charismatic he was, then for obscure reasons he would fail to complete a third. When people got tired of that candidate, and the centre-left in general, we'd witness the phenomenon of democratic change, and the voters would install a candidate of the centre-right, also for one or two terms, depending on his personal appeal. Western nations took a strange pride in this system, though it amounted to little more than a power-sharing deal between two rival gangs, and they would even go to war to impose it on nations that failed to share their enthusiasm. — Michel Houellebecq

No candidate dares to look for a new campaign model that could really enhance the democratic process. Instead we are left with the current one which makes our candidates look like hucksters. — Greta Van Susteren

Nothing will motivate conservative evangelical Christians to vote Republican in the 2008 presidential election more than a Democratic nominee named Hillary Rodham Clinton - not even a run by the devil himself ... I certainly hope that Hillary is the candidate. She has $300 million so far. But I hope she's the candidate. Because nothing will energize my [constituency] like Hillary Clinton. If Lucifer ran, he wouldn't. — Jerry Falwell

Barack Obama is probably the most exciting candidate that either the Democratic or Republican party has produced at least since I've been around. He's fresh, he's new, he's insightful. — Joe Biden

The charade of politics is to make voters think that the personal narrative of the candidate affects the operation of the corporate state. It doesn't really matter on the fundamental issues whether the President is Republican or Democratic. — Chris Hedges

So as far as leadership and patriotism goes, I think it's really important that those things have to take place. And I think he's the best Democratic candidate we've had since Bill Clinton. And that's coming from a Democrat. — Toby Keith

Mike Huckabee said he's the only person who has fought the Clinton political machine and won. As opposed to Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, who's the only person who fought a fax machine and lost. — Jimmy Fallon

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry came down pretty hard on fellow candidate Howard Dean this weekend. After Dean misspoke several times, Kerry said you can't misspeak 15 times in a week and be president. And Bush said, 'You can't'? — Jay Leno

They say John Kerry is the first Democratic presidential candidate in history to raise $50 million in a three-month period. Actually, that's nothing. He once raised $500 million with two words: 'I do.' — Jay Leno

In a new issue of Esquire magazine, they revealed that before he was married to Teresa Heinz, Senator John Kerry dated Morgan Fairchild, Michelle Phillips, Catherine Oxenberg and Dana Delany. Finally a Democratic presidential candidate with good taste in women. — Jay Leno

I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President, who happens also to be a Catholic. — John F. Kennedy

It is an article of faith with the Democrats that they must fool Americans by simulating agreement with normal people. The winner of the Democratic primary is always the candidate who does the best impersonation of an American. — Ann Coulter

Hillary Clinton is also not a very exciting, inspiring candidate to a lot of the left-leaning Democratic base, especially in Iowa. — Mara Liasson

It doesn't matter if the Republican or the Democratic candidate wins the governorship [of Hawaii]. Either one is already in the kingdom, — Ed Silvoso

If you look at that 2008 Democratic primary, there was no more formidable, unstoppable candidate - other than an incumbent President - in modern times than Hillary Clinton. — Ted Cruz

To balance China, the democracies will need new friends - and India with its fast-growing economy, youthful population, and democratic politics seems the obvious candidate. — David Frum