Obama Campaign Quotes & Sayings

Though I am flattered that Governor Palin has chosen to cite me as a source of wisdom, what I said had nothing to do with politics. This is yet another example of McCain and Palin distorting the truth, and all the more reason to remember that this campaign is not about gender, it is about which candidate has an agenda that will improve the lives of all Americans, including women. The truth is, if you care about the status of women in our society and in our troubled economy, the best choice by far is Obama-Biden. — Madeleine Albright

People who are using it to sell things on Craigslist to holding garage sales - campaigns - the Obama campaign and the Romney campaign both used Square to raise funds. — Jack Dorsey

Some of the companies we helped start are names you know. An office supply company called Staples - where I'm pleased to see the Obama campaign has been shopping; The Sports Authority, which became a favorite of my sons. We started an early childhood learning center called Bright Horizons that First Lady Michelle Obama rightly praised. — Mitt Romney

The Obama campaign was smarter, quicker on their feet than the Clinton camp. — Edward Klein

I saw, during the midterm campaign of 2006, how difficult it was for opponents of stem cell research to run against hope. And so it was in the 2008 presidential contest. This was hope in the collective, a definition that should always apply to the expression of a people's political will. Christopher Reeve had believed in a formula: optimism + information = hope. In this case, the informing agent was us. Granted, it may all look different in six months to a year, but it is hard not to be buoyed by the desire for positive change as articulated and advanced by Barack Obama. It is okay to hope. This time the aspiration of many will not be derided as desperation by a few, as it was during the stem cell debate of '06.
By the time you read this book, President Obama and the 111th Congress will have established federal funding for stem cell research. The dam has broken.
Just as I'd hoped. — Michael J. Fox

During the first campaign, one of my jobs as my husband's spouse was to travel around the country and really listen to women. There were voices that were new to me: the voices of military spouses, many of them women, and veterans ... I was overwhelmed by their challenges, and the notion that we as a country don't even know that these women exist, because we live in a country where one percent of the population protects the rights and freedoms of the other 99 percent of us. I thought that if I had the opportunity to serve as First Lady, I was going to use this platform to be their voice. — Michelle Obama

I admired the way McCain worked on campaign finance reform. I admired the way Nancy Pelosi stiffened the Democrats' spine during the health care debate. I admire the way Barack Obama has raised a dog in the White House without ever putting it on the roof of the car for a vacation drive. — Gail Collins

Obama's judges share his contempt for the original meaning of the Constitution. He has long seen the U.S. Constitution as an obstacle to what he considers progress. In a 2001 interview that surfaced during the 2008 presidential campaign, he made this very clear: the Supreme Court under Justice Earl Warren had failed to break "free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution," Obama told the host of a radio show. — Phyllis Schlafly

During the 2008 election, I made clear to the Obama campaign that I don't think it's wise for me to force my personal political agenda on anyone. — Questlove

Being politicians, they all got to sharing their personal stories. Obama talked about his mother's battle with cancer. Harry Reid talked about a kid with a cleft palate. And John McCain told how he once carried a brain dead woman through an entire campaign. — Bill Maher

McChrystal had organized a jaw-dropping counterterrorism campaign inside Iraq, but the tactical successes did not translate into a strategic victory. This was why counterinsurgency - blanketing the population in safety and winning them over - was necessary. — Bob Woodward

I thought Obama ran the best campaign I have ever known - disciplined, well organised, very, very good. I was very impressed. — Nancy Reagan

Historically, Labour has used technology as a form of control. We would use pagers and faxes to send out messages telling people what line to take. The key learning from the Obama campaign is to use technology to empower your supporters. — Douglas Alexander

I have respect for Senator McCain. I used to like him a lot. I supported him. I raised a lot of money for his campaign against President Obama. — Donald Trump

Romney still enjoys the Republicans' traditional advantage among voters who are veterans, but the Obama campaign is confident it can chip away at that. — Mara Liasson

Just a few months ago in the Republican primary Mitt Romney said to his opponents, who he was crushing at the time, stop whining. And I think that's a good message for the Romney campaign. Instead of whining about what the Obama campaign is saying, why don't you just put the facts out there and let people decide rather than trying to hide them. — Stephanie Cutter

I read 'Game Change.' If you want to relive the campaign, that book is unbelievable. It's great. It's the book of that campaign. It brought all the memories back of everything with Clinton and Obama, and Sarah Palin and McCain, and choosing her, and John Edwards. It was an interesting book. — Annette Bening

Given his campaign rhetoric about Afghanistan, I think I myself, our commanders, and our troops had expected more commitment to the cause and more passion for it from him. ...I never doubted Obama's support for the troops, only his support for their mission." Pg. 299 — Robert M. Gates

I am one of your biggest fans (Barack Obama), if not the biggest, and have been since the inception of your campaign ... It would be wonderful if we were able to give this man all of the power that he needs to pass the things that he needs to pass ... You're so handsome that I can't speak properly. — Gwyneth Paltrow

Whether it is spelled Bain and being put out by the Obama campaign or Bane and being out by Hollywood, the narratives are similar: a highly intelligent villain with offshore interests and a past both are seeking to cover up who had a powerful father and is set on pillaging society. — Chris Lehane

To distract from the president's disappointing record, Team Obama has decided to base their entire campaign on attacking the private sector and Mitt Romney's career as a successful businessman. — Reince Priebus

Those who closely watched the campaign should not be surprised by Obama's hostility toward Israel, given his relations with pro-Palestinian, virulent critics of Israel and his voluntary membership in Reverend Wright's decidedly anti-Semitic church. Furthermore, his campaign website featured anti-Semitic posts. — David Limbaugh

During the 2008 campaign, I strongly endorsed Barack Obama for president. I did so early, when many Democratic leaders - including many prominent African-American politicians - believed the safe bet was to back then-front-runner Hillary Clinton. — Douglas Wilder

This election isn't about Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. It's about you. The other guys write $10 million checks and make $10,000 bets. But we've bet this campaign on you. — Jim Messina

There was always this sense, even early on in the campaign, that if the senator Obama could score this upset victory in Iowa, that there was a pretty good chance that he would end up being president of the United States. — Josh Earnest

President Obama had voiced strong support for the effort in Afghanistan during his campaign, pledging to add two brigades, which he did. But since the inauguration ... the administration had signaled that the U.S. commitment needed careful assessment, and we needed to recalibrate the strategy and objectives. — Stanley A. McChrystal

Obama's global drone assassination campaign, a remarkable innovation in global terrorism, exhibits the same patterns. By most accounts, it is generating terrorists more rapidly than it is murdering those suspected of someday intending to harm us - an impressive contribution by a constitutional lawyer on the eight hundredth anniversary of Magna Carta, which established the basis for the principle of presumption of innocence that is the foundation of civilized law. — Noam Chomsky

In truth the social media elements of the Obama campaign, while extremely innovative, did not produce a lot of results. — Sean Parker

I honor, we honor the service of John McCain, and I respect his many accomplishments, even if he chooses to deny mine. My differences with him are not personal; they are with the policies he has proposed in this campaign. — Barack Obama

President Obama announced his re-election campaign, though it's not really a surprise. He did all the things that make it official: He filed the paperwork, redesigned his website, and printed another fake birth certificate. — Craig Ferguson

Some of the reasons John McCain lost in 2008 were his lackluster campaign, his refusal to showcase Obama's extreme liberalism and, thus, his failure to demonstrate why he would make a better president than Obama. — David Limbaugh

Last week John McCain said the fundamentals of our economy are strong. This week, he said it's the worst crisis since World War II. So he suspended his campaign, unless you count doing interviews, airing attack ads, sending out surrogates on TV to attack Obama. — Bill Maher

During the campaign for re-election, Barack Obama at least made vague references to a willingness to accept $3 trillion of reduced spending in exchange for a $1 trillion dollar tax increase. — Bob Beauprez

It's a campaign strategy. He's all about getting the votes. I support gay marriage too, but Obama only does things to stir the pot and get the votes in. Later on I bet you a shinny penny he is going to bring up immigration reform to cater to the Latino population and get his votes. He should [have] backed gay marriage a long time ago, not just now to get votes. He is fake, just like the rest of the politicos in this country. — Barack Obama

In the political environment that exists today, the opposition research of the Obama campaign is looking for anything they can use to distract from the failure of the president to reignite our economy. And Im simply not enthusiastic about giving them hundreds or thousands of more pages to pick through, distort, and lie about. — Mitt Romney

Just before Obama's nationally televised campaign kickoff rally last Feb. 10, the candidate disinvited Wright from giving the public invocation. Wright explained: 'When [Obama's] enemies find out that in 1984 I went to Tripoli' to visit Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, 'a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell.'

According to Wright, Obama then told him, 'You can get kind of rough in the sermons, so what we've decided is that it's best for you not to be out there in public.' But privately, Obama and his family prayed with Wright just before the presidential announcement. — Ronald Kessler

The Obama campaign is one of the greatest examples of what is possible in the brave new world of 21st Century marketing. They did a masterful job of connecting with minds, personalizing messages, refining old and new media, sending clear messages, and providing the feedback that enabled them to respond to the messages they heard. — Anne M. Mulcahy

Possible controversy for the Obama campaign. Republicans are now accusing Barack Obama's campaign of voter fraud, because some of the people they've registered sound like they have fake names. Apparently, the fakest-sounding name is Barack Obama. — Conan O'Brien

Though President Obama promised during the 2008 campaign to pass the DREAM Act, he never made it a priority and failed to bring Republicans and Democrats together to do it in his first term. — Juan Williams

The indecisiveness and ambivalence so devastatingly described by both of Obama's previous secretaries of defense, Leon Panetta and Bob Gates, are already beginning to characterize the Syria campaign. — Charles Krauthammer

Launching more drone strikes than Bush ever did and compiling a secret "kill list," President Obama's administration took the view that al-Qaeda was like an organized crime gang - disrupt the hierarchy, destroy the gang. Theirs was a concerted and dogmatic attempt at pretending that al-Qaeda was nothing but a fringe criminal group, and not a concrete realization of an ideological phenomenon with grassroots sympathy. They took this view in part because of how successful Islamist "fellow-traveler" lobbies had been in influencing Obama's campaign after the mistakes of the Bush years. For Islamists and their allies, the problem was "al-Qaeda inspired extremism," and not the extremism that had inspired al-Qaeda. — Sam Harris

Who cares if it's a campaign strategy, and who are other people to say it's ridiculous? I'm not gay, but I strongly support gay marriage. What if someone told you you couldn't marry the one you love? I think it's about time! Let people who love each other that are the same sex get married. They deserve the right to be happy also. — Barack Obama

Yesterday, President-elect Barack Obama announced his new economic team. You know what he should do? Hire those people who were in charge of his fundraising campaign. We can pay this thing off in like a week. — Jay Leno

I campaigned for [Barack] Obama for more than a year. I was in Iowa, Minnesota, California, Arizona - just traveling around to help get the word out. It was such a huge, spirited campaign, and so positive. But you travel around to cities in the U.S. now and there's just this hopelessness that has set in. It makes it hard to understand why it seems so impossible to make any kind of progressive change with an administration that is seemingly progressive, or why we keep encountering such political roadblocks to change. — Scarlett Johansson

The Republican brand has been so badly damaged that if Republicans try to run an anti-Obama, anti-Rev. Wright or, if Sen. Clinton wins, anti-Clinton campaign, they are simply going to fail. This model has already been tested with disastrous results. — Newt Gingrich

It seems that the first victim of an Obama campaign is the truth. It seems that the first victim of an Obama campaign is the truth. — Mitt Romney

Obama's side was Jim Messina, his campaign manager. — Anonymous

I don't know if you heard the news, but Wall Street now is a farmer's market. I don't want to say things are going downhill quickly, but Obama's new campaign slogan is 'Are you better off than you were four days ago?' — Bill Maher

We are living in a time where we just don't have enough time. People are rushed. They're over worked, over scheduled. Not enough resources ... But the thing that I want people to understand in this campaign is that families can make small manageable changes in their lives that can have pretty significant impacts. — Michelle Obama

I am honored to be here as co-chair of President Obama's re-election campaign. — Eva Longoria

A disturbing prospect looms before us as Americans consider the possibility of a second term for President Barack Obama. Millions of conservatives who revere the Constitution, with its guarantees of freedom and limited government, have watched with alarm as the campaign season has unfolded. — James Dobson

We have a lot that we believe is in the best interests of our country,and I'm looking forward to working with Barack Obama during the campaign and then on after the inauguration. — Hillary Clinton

Together we can change our culture for the better by ending violence against women and girls, artists have a unique power to change minds and attitudes and get us thinking and talking about what matters, and all of us, in our lives, have the power to set an example. Join our campaign to stop this violence. — Barack Obama

The folks like myself that do this for a living, we were expecting a regular campaign had built the databases, done all the new social media, learned our lessons from [Barack] Obama whipping us twice on how to do voter contact, and then Donald Trump gets in it and turns it into a national election. — Melissa Harris-Perry

I have given money to the Obama campaign online and now they bombard me with emails every day. Why did I do that online? Why didn't I just walk into an office? — Anne Heche

Every day, President Obama sends a beautiful message about how we should treat our women based on how he treats his wife. When people went after his wife during the campaign, he took a stand. — Steve Harvey

Obama has placed himself in perfect political position: he spent the 2008 campaign convincing the American people that he's a racial unifier rather than a divider, without any evidence to prove it. — Ben Shapiro

As we keep up the pressure, our air campaign will continue to hit ISIL harder than ever. — Barack Obama

Yesterday, John McCain actually said that if he's president that he'll take on, and I quote, 'the old boys network in Washington.' Now I'm not making this up. This is somebody who's been in Congress for twenty-six years, who put seven of the most powerful Washington lobbyists in charge of his campaign. And now he tells us that he's the one who's gonna' to take on the old boys network. The old boys network? In the McCain campaign that's called a staff meeting. Come, on! — Barack Obama

President Obama's version of America is a divided one - pitting us against each other based on our income level, gender, and social status. His policies have failed! We are not better off than we were 4 years ago, and no rhetoric, bumper sticker, or campaign ad can change that. — Mia Love

Bill Clinton also benefited from a friendly press corps. With their baby boomer background, more liberal views, and Ivy League lawyer credentials, the Clintons fit the mold of many of the baby boomer reporters. In time, of course, the press would turn on Clinton. In the 1992 campaign, however, it seemed to me that some news outlets allowed their zeal for change to undermine their high standards of journalistic objectivity. (The pattern would later repeat with another exciting candidate promising change, Barack Obama.) — George W. Bush

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

Barack Obama's campaign of empty self-contradictory promises has apparently hoodwinked the state of Wyoming ... — Charles Foster Johnson

The public should begin to understand that there's nothing that comes out of this campaign, or this Obama White House, that they can believe. It truly is all misrepresentation and deception. — John Sununu

President Obama met with ten House Democrats opposed to the health care bill. He did all he could to get their votes. He promised to campaign for them in their districts and when that didn't work, he threatened to campaign for them in their districts. — Argus Hamilton

As millions of Americans look for work, the Obama campaign and Democrats are attempting to distract attention away from this administration's dismal record. The attack they have launched against Mitt Romney shows just how worried they are about facing him in the general election. — Jeb Bradley

Here's what presidential candidate Mitt Romney said about Barack Obama: Barack Obama is not a very good President. He said Barack Obama doesn't do a very good job on the economy; he said that Obama's foreign policy has a lot of holes in it; he said Obama has done a pretty poor job across the board of working in bipartisan fashion. But, Romney added, Obama's a good guy. He's a good family man, a good husband, a man who believes in the basic principles espoused by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He is not someone you should be afraid of in any way. Essentially, Romney's campaign slogan was this: "Obama: Good Guy, Bad President. — Ben Shapiro

President Obama's re-election campaign said that this year they'll knock on 150 percent more doors than they did in 2008. Well, of course they will. They have to. There's so many foreclosures it's tough to tell where people live. — Jay Leno

The other reason might be that you want to talk to voters when you've got seven primaries in seven days. Understand what's happened in this race - where we campaign actively in a state, and voters have the chance to see me directly, they check under the hood, and they kick the tires, when we don't have as much time. — Barack Obama

The Air Force is pulling nine cargo aircraft from military operations to support President Obama's stepped-up visits to campaign events. Good, now he can carry his entire ego with him on the trail. — Fred Thompson

Heading into the race, the perception among political professionals and the press had been that the rival campaign squadrons were more or less evenly matched. But as the smoke cleared, a consensus quickly emerged that the Democrats had methodically been building an atomic clock while the Republicans were trifling with Tinkertoys. Chicago's mockery of Boston was hushed but withering. — Mark Halperin

My concern about Barack Obama is he ran a campaign in 2008 where he said we're going to bring people together and solve big problems. And he specifically talked about the need to reach across the aisle and deal with issues like the economy, which was obviously the top issue in 2008. It has not happened. — Rob Portman

The only book by a modern president that bears serious comparison with Obama's 'Dreams From My Father' is Jimmy Carter's short campaign autobiography, 'Why Not the Best?,' published in 1975. — Jonathan Raban

The terror attacks have reshaped the campaign and may have given another boost to Donald Trump. — Barack Obama

Barack Obama said yesterday that the economy was 'going to get worse before it gets better.' See, that's when you know the campaign is really over. Remember before the election? 'The audacity of hope!' 'Yes, we can!' 'A change we can believe in!' Now it's, 'We're all screwed.' — Jay Leno

The Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. — Paul Krugman

President Obama clearly cannot run on his record. All he's offering is more of the same. That's not good. Look at the economy. It's stagnating. And so, what they're now going to try and do is bring this campaign down to little things, distractions, distortions, smear, fear, anger, frustration. — Paul Ryan

But when our elected officials and our political campaign become entirely untethered to reason and facts and analysis, when it doesn't matter what's true and what's not, that makes it all but impossible for us to make good decisions on behalf of future generations. It threatens the values of respect and tolerance that we teach our children and that are the source of America's strength. It frays the habits of the heart that underpin any civilized society -- because how we operate is not just based on laws, it's based on habits and customs and restraint and respect. — President Barack Obama

Obama's primary constituency was financial institutions. They were the core of the funding for his campaign. They expect to be paid back. And they were. They were paid back by coming out richer and more powerful than they were before the crisis that they created. — Noam Chomsky

Today, for the first time - and the Obama campaign showed us this - we can go from the digital world, from the self-organizing power of networks, to the physical one. — Carlo Ratti

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

And here's what Barack Obama and his surrogates said about Mitt Romney: Mitt Romney is the worst guy since Mussolini. Mitt Romney is the guy who straps dogs to the top of cars. Mitt Romney is the kind of guy who wants to "put y'all back in chains." Mitt Romney is leading a "war on women" and, in fact, has compiled a binder full of women that he can then use to prosecute his war. Mitt Romney is the type of guy who would specifically fire an employee so that five years later his wife would die of cancer thanks to lack of health insurance. Mitt Romney would take his money and put it in an overseas bank account specifically to deprive the American people of money. The Obama campaign slogan: "Romney: Rich, Sexist, Racist Jackass. — Ben Shapiro

Because of President Obama's failed record on nearly every issue from the economy to the deficit to Medicare, the Obama campaign has become increasingly dirty, despicable, and desperate. — Reince Priebus

The Internet empowers individuals to play a more active role in the political process, as Obama's campaign has manifested. — Al Gore

Growing up, politics never trickled down to the areas we come from. But people from Obama's camp, and Obama himself, reached out to me and asked for my help on the campaign. We've sat and had dinner, and we've spoken on the phone. He's a very sharp guy. Very charming. Very cool. — Jay-Z

People looking into Barack Obama's campaign contributions say that Obama may have received $3.3 million from abroad. Yeah. It turns out that broad is Oprah Winfrey. — Conan O'Brien

I think Michelle Obama is on the right track with her Let's Move campaign to bring down childhood obesity. She and I come from the same state, Illinois, which is number four in the nation for obese children. One out of five Illinois children are considered obese. Not overweight, obese. And two-thirds of Americans are either overweight or obese. — Aaron Schock

Obama ran a hard-edged and negative campaign against Romney, hoping to convince recession-weary voters that his rival was unworthy of the job. — Ron Fournier

Obama supporters pretended that his 2008 campaign was some sort of populist uprising even as Wall Street overwhelmingly supported his candidacy. — Glenn Greenwald

Under normal circumstances, if the centerpiece of a president's campaign is helping the disadvantaged and we are our brother's keeper, the idea that this same guy has an actual brother living in third-world poverty without any help from Obama, this would have been on the cover of 'The New York Times.' But none of them are touching it. — Dinesh D'Souza

There has never been a campaign where there hasn't been sniping from the outside and second-guessing. I hear the same sometimes from the Democratic side in terms of President Obama's campaign, so that's to be expected. — Rob Portman

People who supported Obama felt like they formed a relationship, that they were being spoken to. The way that campaign worked and the way he's worked during his first term is to make people feel like he's grasping their hand, whether it's by tweeting or email, moments after an event, sometimes during an event. It makes people relate to him. — James Spader

It's a matter of fact that Senator Obama has spent more money on negative ads than any political campaign in history. — John McCain

This counter-terrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out Isil wherever they exist, using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground. This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years. — Barack Obama

I feel like I am campaigning door to door. You just can't step out of a band like Brooks & Dunn and assume that it is just going to be business as usual. You have to work it. It does feel like a campaign where you would have Obama, Romney, or Newt beating the bushes right now. That's what I'm having to do. — Ronnie Dunn

Both the Obama and Romney campaigns said they pulled all their political ads today in observance of the September 11th anniversary. But politics wasn't very far offstage. The Obama campaign sees foreign policy as an advantage this year. — Mara Liasson

Just keep focusing on the work that you're doing. Focus on what's in front of you today. And don't read the papers, just go campaign. Just do your thing. Talk to people directly — Michelle Obama

According to federal reports filed yesterday, the Obama campaign spent more money than they raised in the month of May. They spent more money than they raised? Well, that's called being a Democrat — Jay Leno

One of my favorite stories is from Obama's first campaign: Michelle Obama was out there every day, collecting signatures and supervising the other people who did. If you were supposed to get 300 signatures and you only got 299, you had to face the wrath of Michelle. — Jodi Kantor

It always seemed to me ironic that the McCain campaign kept referring sneeringly to Obama's meager resume - 'a mere community organizer!' - before he entered electoral politics. It was Obama's experience as a community organizer that proved such a killer app when he applied that skill to the Internet. — Tina Brown