President Elections Quotes & Sayings

The Bible is right: A deluge of images does encourage idolatry. Look at the cults of personality in America today. Look at Hollywood. Look at Washington. I'd like to see the next presidential race be run according to Second Commandment principles. No commercials. A radio-only debate. We need an ugly president. I know we're missing out on some potential Abe Lincolns because they'd look gawky and gangly on TV. — A. J. Jacobs

Not a good night for President Obama. He lost elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and he's not doing good in Afghanistan either. — Jay Leno

Now that the midterm elections are over, President Obama has invited congressional leaders from both parties to a meeting at the White House tomorrow. When asked if he's nervous, Obama said, 'Oh, I'm not going to be there. I just invited them over. They can figure it out themselves.' — Jimmy Fallon

I know how important voting and elections are. But everybody know that life is going to be life regardless of who is president. — Lil' Wayne

Those of us who follow politics seriously rather than view it as a game show do not look at Hillary Clinton and simply think 'first woman president.' We think - for example - 'first ex-co-president' or 'first wife of a disbarred lawyer and impeached former incumbent' or 'first person to use her daughter as photo-op protection during her husband's perjury rap. — Christopher Hitchens

The major problem - one of the major problems, for there are several - one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.
To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. — Douglas Adams

How do we get from electrons to elections and from protons to presidents? — John Searle

Six months after 9/11, Jean-Marie Le Pen was almost elected president of France. There were a number of leaders and a number of parties running in the French national elections that year in the spring of 2002. But it ended up being not just a shock across France, and not just a shock across Europe. But it ended up being almost a worldwide shock when in the spring of 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen came in second in those national elections. That put him in a two-man runoff for the presidency of France, spring of 2002. — Rachel Maddow

Political issues were interlinked more closely than he had previously imagined. He had always thought that problems such as Berlin and Cuba were separate from each other and had little connection with such issues as civil rights and health care. But President Kennedy had been unable to deal with the Cuban missile crisis without thinking of the repercussions in Germany. And if he had failed to deal with Cuba, the imminent midterm elections would have crippled his domestic program, and made it impossible for him to pass a civil rights bill. Everything was connected. — Ken Follett

Now that the 2014 elections are over and national politics is all about 2016, Democrats have good reason to worry that, for all his success at the polls, President Obama will leave his party with a toxic legacy. — Byron York

You can track elections by who was playing that president on 'SNL' at that time. There's the theory that the more likable or charismatic impression would help get the president elected. — Jordan Peele

I voted for Justice Breyer and Justice Ginsburg. Not because I agreed with their ideology, but because I thought they were qualified and that elections have consequences when presidents are nominated. — John McCain

The election of Donald Trump confirmed everything I knew of my country and none of what I could accept. The idea that America would follow its first black president with Donald Trump accorded with its history. I was shocked at my own shock. I had wanted Obama to be right.

I still want Obama to be right. I still would like to fold myself into the dream. This will not be possible. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

Two-thirds of the Iranian people would like to be reconciled with the West. They don't like the fanaticism of the governing religious council. It's the only place in the world where the last six elections have been won by the more progressive candidate, two for president, two for the mayors, two for the parliament. So most people there are sympathetic to the world we Americans want to build, whether we're Republicans or Democrats. On the other hand, almost everybody there wants them to have nuclear power. They see it as a status symbol, and a sense of their own security. — William J. Clinton

I've heard so many people, particularly people of faith, say they could look past his wrongdoings. When they're pressed further, the reply is always some variation of "He doesn't mean what he says," "It's just to get a rise out of people," or "It's all for show." When you turn a blind eye and a deaf ear and say nothing, you are in fact saying everything. You are telling others you approve of immorality and injustice. You are telling them you support the marginalization and vilification of those who are different from you. You are telling them that fear reigns supreme and that you will tolerate nefarious behavior. As President John F. Kennedy said in a speech: "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crises, maintain their neutrality."

- Amy Erickson — Erin Passons

Kim Kardashian tweeted that she is supporting President Obama in the midterm elections. I think it worked because all of the polls are predicting that after tonight Barack Obama will still be president of the United States. — Conan O'Brien

Since Jimmy Carter, religious fundamentalists play a major role in elections. He was the first president who made a point of exhibiting himself as a born again Christian. That sparked a little light in the minds of political campaign managers: Pretend to be a religious fanatic and you can pick up a third of the vote right away. Nobody asked whether Lyndon Johnson went to church every day. Bill Clinton is probably about as religious as I am, meaning zero, but his managers made a point of making sure that every Sunday morning he was in the Baptist church singing hymns. — Noam Chomsky

I am the elected president of Liberia, not Ellen Sirleaf. They stole my victory, and I am here to say loud and clear that I am the winner of the elections. — George Weah

It's easy to see why conservatives would be salivating at the thought of a Hillary primary challenge. Presidents who face serious primary challenges - Ford, Carter, Bush I - almost always lose. The last president who lost reelection without a serious primary challenge, by contrast, was Herbert Hoover. But in truth, the chances that Obama will face a primary challenge are vanishingly slim, and the chances that he will lose reelection only slightly higher. No wonder conservatives are fantasizing about Hillary Clinton taking down Barack Obama. If she doesn't, it's unlikely they will. — Peter Beinart

Everybody faces obstacles. And I looked to people who had been through many to succeed in life. Abraham Lincoln, born to a poor family, faced defeat through most of his life. Lost eight elections, failed two businesses, had a nervous breakdown, and still became president. — Dave Winfield

For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up. We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace
business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half. — Gore Vidal

Our post-denominational age should be the perfect time for a Mormon to become president, or at least the Republican nominee. Mormons share nearly all the conservative commitments so beloved of the evangelicals who wield disproportionate influence in primary elections. — Noah Feldman

No subject was more important in the 2014 elections than healthcare, and Republicans in Congress should waste no time in taking decisive action in response to the voters'€ demands. Obamacare has escalated costs, disrupted coverage, and introduced bad incentives throughout our healthcare system. Congress must repeal Obamacare and send the president a replacement package of reforms that protects freedom and focuses on the real problem with American healthcare -€" affordability. — Bobby Jindal

Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention.
[Shrub Flubs His Dub, The Nation, June 18, 2001] — Molly Ivins

Both groups [of pundits] were critics, and that is the heart of the problem. If you are a pundit, you seem so smart when you are telling the President what he did wrong ... This [is] mostly BS. — Jeffrey A. Miller

He's too reasonable," Janice said.

"I agree. But the president's campaign advisors understand controlled violence. They realize that war unites us, brings us together. Yellow ribbons, Support Our Troops, all that. Little wars help win elections, provided they're short. — Phil Harvey

Mrs. Clinton, speaking to a black church audience on Martin Luther King Day last year, did describe President George W. Bush as treating the Congress of the United States like 'a plantation,' adding in a significant tone of voice that 'you know what I mean ... '
She did not repeat this trope, for some reason, when addressing the electors of Iowa or New Hampshire. She's willing to ring the other bell, though, if it suits her. But when an actual African-American challenger comes along, she rather tends to pout and wince at his presumption (or did until recently). — Christopher Hitchens

A regard for the public tranquillity, which would so frequently have been interrupted by annual or by occasional elections, induced the primitive Christians to constitute an honourable and perpetual magistracy, and to choose one of the wisest and most holy among their presbyters to execute, during his life, the duties of their ecclesiastical governor. It was under these circumstances that the lofty title of Bishop began to raise itself above the humble appellation of presbyter; and while the latter remained the most natural distinction for the members of every Christian senate, the former was appropriated to the dignity of its new president. — Edward Gibbon

I am and will remain the president of all Cameroonians without exception, and the great winner in these elections is democracy — Paul Biya

On Dec. 1, 1948, after the triumph of the revolution, which insured the final victory of the will of the people expressed through elections, President Jose Figueres abolished the army in my country. — Oscar Arias

Presidents are not elected anymore; they are hired. — Michel Templet

Well my briefing was that Honduras was a small and vulnerable country just back on the path towards democracy it was about to have just before I arrived, the first elections for a civilian president in more than 9 years. — John Negroponte

The president doesn't order the military to seize political opponents. He doesn't order his intelligence community to lie about national security for political purposes. He uses the military or intelligence communities to protect the United States and our citizens, not to help him win elections. — Kathleen Troia McFarland

I said bluntly that if the president were to follow Mr. Clifford's advice and if in the elections I were to vote, I would vote against the president. — George C. Marshall

A librarian for president is exactly what this country needs. — Richard Castle

After the 1970s, when President Nixon's illegal campaign cash was used as a secret slush fund to pay for the Watergate burglary and cover-up, Americans have demanded to know where the money fueling our elections is coming from. — Eric Schneiderman

Now, I'm an apolitical person (which I realize is its own kind of misleading political posture, but I think you know what I mean). I do not have conventional political affiliations. I follow presidential elections the same way I follow the NFL playoffs: obsessively and dispassionately. But Sarah Palin was (and is) a real problem. Her nomination for vice president in 2008 represents the most desperate inclinations of the Republican Party. In two hundred years, I suspect historians will use Palin as an example of how insane America became in the decade following the destruction of the World Trade Center, and her origin story will seem as extraterrestrial and eccentric as Abe Lincoln jumping out of a window to undermine a voting quorum in 1840. — Chuck Klosterman

'Elections have consequences,' President Obama said, setting his new policy agenda just three days after taking office in 2009. Three elections later, the president's party has lost 70 House seats and 14 Senate seats. The job of Republicans now is to govern with the confidence that elections do have consequences, promptly passing the conservative reform the voters have demanded. — Bobby Jindal

President Bush is going to establish elections there in Iraq. He's going to rebuild the infrastructure. He's going to create jobs. He said if it works there, he'll try it here. — David Letterman

A nation not of men but of laws, intoned John Adams as he, among other lawyers, launched what has easily become the most demented society ever consciously devised by intelligent men. We are now enslaves by laws. We are governed by lawyers. We create little but litigate much. Our monuments are the ever-expanding prisons, where millions languish for having committed victimless crimes or for simply not playing the game of plausible deniability (aka lying) with a sufficiently good legal team. What began as a sort of Restoration comedy, The Impeachment of a President, on a frivolous, irrelevant matter, is suddenly turning very black indeed, and all our political arrangements are at risk as superstitious Christian fundamentalists and their corporate manipulators seem intent on overthrowing two presidential elections in a Senate trial. This is no longer comedy. This is usurpation. — Gore Vidal

In November 2000, the Republicans stole from America our most precious right of all: the right to free and fair elections ... Now President Bush occupies the White House, but with questionable legitimacy. — Cynthia McKinney