Quotes & Sayings About Incumbents

Do things that incumbents can't or won't do because it's economically or technically infeasible. — Aaron Levie

Thirty-six House incumbents with ratings from the AFL-CIO's Committee on Political Education of seventy-five or higher were defeated - especially traumatic since Republicans had filibustered labor's fondest legislative wish: a repeal of the right-to-work provision of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. Union members voted for politicians who weakened their unions because the Democrats supported civil rights. — Rick Perlstein

Further-more, partisan attachments powerfully shape political perceptions, beliefs and values, and incumbents enjoy advantages well beyond the way in which their districts are configured. — Thomas E. Mann

Redistricting is a deeply political process, with incumbents actively seeking to minimize the risk to themselves (via bipartisan gerrymanders) or to gain additional seats for their party (via partisan gerrymanders). — Thomas E. Mann

Ten of those Republican incumbents, all of whom voted for the impeachment of President Clinton, are from states that Bill Clinton carried. — Robert Torricelli

The case may very well be that Congress is willing to restrict campaign contributions because it has these privileges. It is true that incumbents normally get larger contributions than their challengers. The opponents at least get some money, but they do not have access to the perquisites of the incumbent. — Gordon Tullock

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. — Mark Shields

As long as the appointment process is transparent and there is a broad mix of political views among the governors of the BBC, I think the public can feel confident that impartiality and independence are just as important to me as they have been to previous incumbents. — Gavyn Davies

Relative to the taxi industry, Uber is a sustaining innovation; that is, it makes customers' lives better. Uber targeted mainstream markets with a better service for existing customers, and it succeeded in serving them better than the incumbents. — Clayton M Christensen

The Englishman, as an American observed, felt himself the best-governed citizen in the world, even when in opposition he believed the incumbents were ruining the country. — Barbara W. Tuchman

People are familiar with 'the stick' of the Tea Party ... challenging incumbents, flooding the phone lines. What they're not so much familiar with, and what I want to expand, is 'the carrot.' So when a Mitch McConnell, or when a Republican caucus stands firm ... we have to reward them. — Niger Innis

There is no way to create wealth without ideas. Most new ideas are created by newcomers. So anyone who thinks the world is safe for incumbents is dead wrong. — Gary Hamel

In fact, corporate and union moneys go overwhelmingly to incumbents, so limiting that money, as Congress did in the campaign finance law, may be the single most self-denying thing that Congress has ever done. — Elena Kagan

Bouncing a sitting president requires conscious action, a national decision to redirect the country's course. This cuts against the grain, and that's why incumbents have a natural advantage. — John Podhoretz

The incumbents just have a ton more money because they have rigged the system to help themselves, because they have these networks of small donors. Meanwhile, the amount of people, the incumbents being reelected has just been - that has been going up and up and up. — David Brooks

Republican theory clearly stated that the people held all political power, and only they could delegate authority to a government. The people were free to change governments at will. They didn't need permission from incumbents. — James D. Best

With each door one women walks through it is incumbent to bring another woman through it with her. — Gloria Feldt

In an IT lead world, incumbents generally win because they have the existing relationship with the IT organization. — Aaron Levie

Whether it's steamships disrupted by the railroads or railroads disrupted by the airlines, it's typically the large entrenched incumbents that are displaced by innovators. — Peter Diamandis

I think we are incumbent, I am incumbent, the Who is incumbent, anybody that produces anything by me is incumbent by my Englishness. — Pete Townshend

The reason the U.S. lags so badly is that we have obsolete rules that favor big over small, supply over efficiency, and incumbents over new market entrants. — Amory Lovins

Incumbents don't like it, but political competition is a good thing. Incumbents usually outspend challengers by better than 3 to 1. Super PACs, which tend to support challengers, have nullified some of this advantage. — Bradley A. Smith

It is easier to disrupt consumer finance. It is much harder to disrupt institutional finance, Wall Street. It is very heavily regulated, and because it is institutional finance, you are dealing with incumbents. — Brad Katsuyama

Congress is unpopular. Incumbents are unpopular. — Joshua Micah Marshall

Every individual who participated in the redistricting process knew that incumbency protection was a critical factor in producing the bizarre lines ... Many of the oddest twists and turns of the Texas districts would never have been created if the Legislature had not been so intent on protecting party and incumbents. — John Paul Stevens

Incumbents are safe, but party majorities are not. This fosters symbolic votes, message politics and little serious legislating in Congress. — Thomas E. Mann

Fools rush in where incumbents fear to tread. — Norman Ralph Augustine

History has shown that incumbents tend to fight trends that challenge established ways and, in the process, lose focus on what matters most: customers. — Jason Kilar

In democracy, as quaintly understood, voters pick their representatives. American democracy increasingly reverses that. Legislative districts are drawn to protect incumbents who, effectively, pick their voters. — George Will

A company at the top of its game has accumulated a number of rules of thumb - implicit assumptions and beliefs about what has been central to its success. New technologies and business models belie or change some of those assumptions, but they only seem sensible if the management team can become aware of those implicit assumptions and mind-sets and suspend them for a moment to contemplate the change. It's very hard to do that with the inherited wisdom, experience, and lore of a company. This is why the failures of incumbents to capture the benefits of disruptive innovations are a result not of bad managers, but of good managers practicing what they have done best. Incremental innovations can quickly be scaled and incorporated. Disruptive innovations require changes in customer sets, business models, or performance metrics that are no longer consistent with what led to success in the past. — Stefan Heck

Since the emergence of the Republican Party, only two Democratic presidents, Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy, have been followed by Democrats, and both FDR and JFK died in office, so their successors ran as incumbents. — George Will

We have been frustrated that there are a number of incumbents in Maryland offices who have been in office for years and years and show no movement or desire to pass the torch. — John Mahoney

The reapportionment of 2002 designed congressional districts that favored incumbents of both parties, leaving virtually no room for challengers to be elected. Of 435 members of the House of Representatives, only four incumbents lost to nonincumbents of the other party. In all, 96 percent of incumbents were re-elected. (It was only 90 percent in 1992 and 1982 after the previous reapportionments.) — Dick Morris

[O]pen platforms and experimental amateurs ... eventually beat out the spendy, slick pros ... Relying on incumbents to produce your revolutions is not a good strategy. They're apt to take all the stuff that makes their products great and try to use technology to charge you extra for it, or prohibit it altogether. — Cory Doctorow