Quotes & Sayings About The General Election

That 1983 general election contained the telltale seeds of eventual Scottish Tory self-destruction. — Charles Kennedy

If there is to be responsible party government, the party label must be something more than a mere device for securing office. Unless those who are elected under the same party designation are willing to assume sufficient responsibility and exhibit sufficient loyalty and coherence, so that they can cooperate with each other in the support of the broad general principles, of the party platform, the election is merely a mockery, no decision is made at the polls, and there is no representation of the popular will. — Calvin Coolidge

If I had to guess what the new Etch-A-Sketch picture is going to be like, it's going to be considerably less to the right. Romney has backed himself into a couple of corners that I don't think will serve him well in the general election, the main one being very harsh stands on immigration, which I think are not only short-sighted but to my mind immoral. — Anna Quindlen

There is no question that I would be the better president. But as for the campaign, are Americans ready for a general election in which both major party candidates are ADD? Quite frankly, it could provide an opening for a third party candidate, maybe someone backed by the evil Koch brothers. — Joe Biden

In a moment when young black voters were key to the election and the reelection of a black president, when the Department of Justice has been led these years by the first two African-American attorneys general, when many big cities boast African-American league prosecutors and police chiefs and mayors, even in this moment, why is it that it still feels to so many young people that there is more power for change on the court than in the courts? — Melissa Harris-Perry

True the greater part of the Irish people was close to starvation. The numbers of weakened people dying from disease were rising. So few potatoes had been planted that, even if they escaped bight, they would not be enough to feed the poor folk who relied upon them. More and more of those small tenants and cottagers, besides, were being forced off the land and into a condition of helpless destitution. Ireland, that is to say, was a country utterly prostrated.
Yet the Famine came to an end. And how was this wonderful thing accomplished? Why, in the simplest way imaginable. The famine was legislated out of existence. It had to be. The Whigs were facing a General Election. — Edward Rutherfurd

How it is that within 60 days of a general election issue, groups can no longer tell voters that a Member of Congress votes pro-abortion, against guns, against the environment or whatever else is beyond me. — Paul Weyrich

We have got this Damocles' sword of Standard and Poor's hanging over us, with the commitment they have made to review Britain's credit rating in the summer of 2010 after the general election. Everybody in Britain has a vital interest in ensuring that the triple A credit rating agency is maintained. — Philip Hammond

Is there any body of citizens in the country who actually welcome and enjoy a General Election?..YES. Those citizens are schoolchildren ... attending national schools. It may be very cynical, but on the appointed day those Lyceums of lower learning are turned into polling stations, the homes of innocence temporarily become part of the grim apparatus of politics and the scheming of sundry chancers. — Flann O'Brien

It is obvious that the aspects of mystery which gather round the word "election" are not confined to it alone. An important class of words, such as "calling," "predestination" "foreknowledge," "purpose," "gift," bears this same character; asserting or connoting, in appropriate contexts, the element of the inscrutable and sovereign in the action of the Divine will upon man, and particularly upon man's will and affection toward God. And it will be felt by careful students of the Bible in its larger and more general teachings that one deep characteristic of the Book, which with all its boundless multiplicity is yet one, is to emphasize on the side of man everything that can humble, convict, reduce to worshipping silence (see for typical passages Job 40:3, 1; Ro 3:19), and on the side of God everything which can bring home to man the transcendence and sovereign claims of his almighty Maker. — James Orr

No more than two opinions or ideas on any one issue should be out there, the General said. Look at the voting system. Same concept. We had multiple parties and candidates and look at the mess we had. Here you choose the left hand or the right and that's more than enough. Two choices and look at all the drama with every presidential election. Even two choices may be one too many. One choice is enough, and no choice may be even better. Less — Viet Thanh Nguyen

The general consent of all that sect is that God (by his foreknowledge, counsel, and wisdom) has no assured election, neither yet any certain reprobation, but that every man may elect or reprobate himself by his own free will, which he has (say they) to do good or evil ... [All these things are] forged by their own brains, and polished by the finest of their wits, when yet in very deed they are but the rotten heresies of ... Pelagius, long ago confuted by Augustine ... — John Knox

At the next General Election, voters face a clear choice: deregulation and less interference in everyday life with the Conservatives, or yet more regulation and interference under Mr Blair. — John Redwood

Remember, the first presidential candidate to reject public financing for both the primary and general election was ... Barack Obama, in 2008. He did it, in spite of a flat pledge to the contrary, because his campaign saw that it could vastly outspend John McCain. — Jeff Greenfield

One way in which the referendum could be overturned is the following way. If the MPs (Members of Parliament) forced a general election and a party campaigned on a promise to keep Britain in the EU, got elected and then they claimed that the election mandate topped the referendum one. — Brendon Rogers

And we know there has been horrendous loss of life and suffering and we know that there is anger. Anyone who came anywhere near the general election in constituencies with a substantial Muslim population knows that. — Clare Short

When contemplating General Eisenhower winning the Presidential election, Truman said, Hell sit here, and hell say, Do this! Do that! And nothing will happen. Poor Ikeit wont be a bit like the Army. Hell find it very frustrating. — Harry S. Truman

I remember the day after the general election when Harold Wilson had lost, I remember quite clearly cycling from my house in Hutton along Long Ridings and feeling what a relief to live in a country with a Tory government again. — Philip Hammond

In a Balkan country, not so many years ago, a party which had been beaten by a narrow margin in a general election retrieved its fortunes by shooting a sufficient number of the representatives of the other side to give it a majority ... Cromwell and Robespierre ... acted likewise.. — Bertrand Russell

As far as party primaries are concerned, both Republican and Democratic Party primaries are dominated by the most zealous voters, whose views may not reflect the views of most members of
their own respective parties, much less the views of those who are going to vote in the November general election. — Thomas Sowell

This is my first week as an American citizen. It's amazing. Now I can vote in the general election - and for American Idol. — Craig Ferguson

You had 42 blacks that ran on the Republican ticket this Cycle, 14 made of them made it to the general election and two of us made it to the House of Representatives. So I think that there is a new movement that needs to have a voice in the Congressional Black Caucus. — Allen West

Remember one thing as South Africa prepares to go to the polls this week and the world grapples with the ascendancy of the African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma: South Africa is not Zimbabwe.
In South Africa, no one doubts that Wednesday's elections will be free and fair. While there is an unacceptable degree of government corruption, there is no evidence of the wholesale kleptocracy of Robert Mugabe's elite. While there has been the abuse of the organs of state by the ruling ANC, there is not the state terror of Mugabe's Zanu-PF. And while there is a clear left bias to Zuma's ANC, there is no suggestion of the kind of voluntarist experimentation that has brought Zimbabwe to its knees. — Mark Gevisser

The sight of allegedly sophisticated politicians parroting complete tripe trivialises and demeans government and it has to be stopped. It's played a significant part in public disillusionment with politics and has led to the absurd situation where more people vote for 'Strictly Come Dancing' than voted in the general election. — John Major

You know, winning Democratic primaries is not a qualification, or a sign, of who can win the general election. If it were, every nominee would win, because every nominee wins Democratic primaries. — Mark Penn

I was delighted that by campaigning throughout England, Scotland and Wales, addressing in all 39 public meetings, I had contributed to the victory of the Conservative Party at this general election. — Edward Heath

In Italy, above all in view of the next general election, political parties, movements and new politicians continue to proliferate, naturally all inspired by the logic of the most severe, rigorous and atavistic stupidity. — William C. Brown

We are now shocked at the current spate of alphabetic scandals - IRS, AP, NSA, VA. But why are we surprised, given that Obama never told the truth about his relationships with the old terrorist Bill Ayers and former PLO ad hoc spokesman Rashid Khalidi, or about the creepy land deal with the crook Tony Rezko? If the Obama White House demonized the Tea Party as tea-baggers, or compared the Republican House opposition to terrorists and arsonists, why should we be astonished, given how he was elected to the U.S. Senate? Quite mysteriously, his primary opponent, Blair Hull, and his general-election opponent, Jack Ryan, both of whom were favored to win, had their confidential divorce records leaked. Their campaigns subsequently imploded. — Anonymous

Newspapers can make their own judgment in terms of who they support in a general election. Our responsibility is to make a considered judgment about where the national interest lies. — Douglas Alexander

The security intended to the general liberty consists in the frequent election and in the rotation of the members of Congress. — James Madison

At lunch, Michael began to reminisce about his first election in Wales, when he was selected to occupy Nye Bevan's seat. A brief kerfuffle had resulted when his name did not appear on the short list of Labour Party candidates for the seat. Evidently some locals preferred not to take on Michael in spite of his association with Nye. Jennie Lee, along with others, intervened and Michael not only made the list but also was selected and won his seat in the general election. He had a wonderful photograph of himself and Jill, with their dog Vanessa between them. The happy looking dog in the centre looked as if she had won the election, I told Michael. "It did, too," he said. — Carl Rollyson

Liberals had tried convincing Americans to vote for them, but that kept ending badly. Except for Lyndon Johnson's aberrational 1964 landslide, Democrats have not been able to get a majority of white people to vote for them in any presidential election since 1948.13 Their only hope was to bring in new voters. Okay, fine. You won't vote for us, America? We tried this the easy way, but you give us no choice. We're going to overwhelm you with new voters from the Third World. As Democratic consultant Patrick Reddy wrote for the Roper Center in 1998: "The 1965 Immigration Reform Act promoted by President Kennedy, drafted by Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and pushed through the Senate by Ted Kennedy has resulted in a wave of immigration from the Third World that should shift the nation in a more liberal direction within a generation. It will go down as the Kennedy family's greatest gift to the Democratic Party."14 — Ann Coulter

What I'm concerned about is the views of many Democrats who know their states, who know how hard it is to win a general election. And it also will push whoever the nominee is into the spotlight. I've been vetted. There's hardly anything you don't know about me. And I think it's fair to say that whoever is in that position, Senator Bernie Sanders or anyone else who might have run, will face the most withering onslaught. — Hillary Clinton

The 2014 election was not a repudiation of government in general. — Chuck Schumer

If the primary ends up being a hard hitting, bloody battle, well so be it. Let's get ready for the general election — Steve Lonegan

A normal woman, indeed, no more believes in democracy in the nation than she believes in democracy at her own fireside; she knows that there must be a class to order and a class to obey, and that the two can never coalesce. Nor is she, susceptible to the stock sentimentalities upon which the whole democratic process is based. This was shown very dramatically in them United States at the national election of 1920, in which the late Woodrow Wilson was brought down to colossal and ignominious defeat - The first general election in which all American women could vote. All the sentimentality of the situation was on the side of Wilson, and yet fully three-fourths of the newly-enfranchised women voters voted against him. — H.L. Mencken

The next General Election isn't about electing yet another Labour or Tory MP to join the hundreds of other Labour or Tory MPs in London. It will be about electing a candidate who will put solving people's problems before scoring political points. Someone who will fight for the future of our communities here in Clwyd West. — Llyr Huws Gruffydd

By definition, the person who learns enough to become the nominee is almost certainly the best person for the general election. — Newt Gingrich

The Labour party on the whole has not been a very effective opposition since the election, partly because it spent months and months electing its new leader. I think the Labour party should, for one thing, stress much more that for most people in the past 13 years, the period was not one of collapse into chaos but actually one where the situation improved, and particularly in areas such as schools, hospitals and a variety of other cultural achievements - so the idea that somehow or other it all needs to be taken down and ground into the dust is not valid. I think we need to defend what most people think basically needs defending and that is the provision of some form of welfare from the cradle to the grave. — Eric Hobsbawm

I will not be able to carry the physical burden of leading the Party at the next general election. I hope it will soon be possible for the customary processes of consultation to be carried on within the Party about its future leadership. — Harold Macmillan

I think we do want a front-runner from the Republican Party who can win the general election. — Pat Robertson

We've got to be willing to lose the primary in order to win the general election. — Jeb Bush

What's important is that, come the general election, people think the right things of you. They think that you've got the right values and the right policies. And that you're the right kind of person to lead the country. — George Osborne

It's possible that the 2012 general-election race will be the least overtly religious one since 1972, the last campaign before Roe v. Wade and the rise of Jimmy Carter brought evangelicalism into the political mainstream. That's because faith remains a complicated issue for Obama, who is still wrongly thought to be a Muslim in some quarters. — Jon Meacham

We will pave the way for a transformation and roll back the years of Thatcherism ... We will turn economic ruin into economic recovery, and above all pave the way for a General Election to elect a Labour Government. — Arthur Scargill

Bill and Hillary Clinton have one central idea in their uncluttered, ambitious minds: Hillary in 2008. Let Bush get re-elected, use the '04 primaries and general election to clean out the underbrush of competing Democratic candidates, and proceed unimpeded to the '08 nomination. — Dick Morris

The general election of 1983 has produced one important result that has passed virtually without comment in the media. It is that, for the first time since 1945, a political party with an openly socialist policy has received the support of over eight and a half million people. This is a remarkable development by any standards and it deserves some analysis ... the 1983 Labour manifesto commanded the loyalty of millions of voters and a democratic socialist bridge-head in public understanding and support can be made. — Tony Benn

Some twat with a Trot poster came up to me on the way in and yelled 'Butcher!' Traitor!' at me. I stopped and mustered as much visual contempt as I could, then assured him that if we win the general election then don't worry, thanks to wankers like him, there will always be another Tory government along afterwards. These people make me vomit. — Alastair Campbell

History shows one important fact: the results of competitive special elections from Hawaii to New York are poor indicators of broader trends or future general election outcomes. — Pete Sessions

In seats where perhaps we don't expect to win at the next general election, the new infrastructure gives us a chance to win local council seats and to build a campaigning base which could help us to win in the future. — Theresa May

When Ruth Bader Ginsburg came in front of the Senate and was approved 96-3 to be on the Supreme Court to replace conservative justice Byron White. This is in 1993.Now, Justice Ginsburg, it was noted earlier, was a general counsel for the ACLU, certainly a liberal group. It was abundantly clear during the confirmation hearing that Ginsburg would swing the balance of the court to the left.But because President [Bill] Clinton won the election and because Justice Ginsburg clearly had the intellectual ability and integrity to serve on the court, she was confirmed. — Sam Brownback

There was also a sense that if he [Obama] did not win in Iowa, that it was very unlikely that he would be able to come back and win the Democratic nomination and win the general election. It was sort of an all-or-nothing bet. The stakes were that high. — Josh Earnest

The general election is not an organizational exercise - it's a mass media exercise. — Roger Stone

Should Sen. McCain capture the nomination as many assume, I believe this general election will offer the worst choices for President in my lifetime. I certainly can't vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama based on their virulently anti-family policy positions. — James Dobson

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

In a democracy the responsibility for the Government's economic policies, which so affect the economy, normally rests with the elected representative of the people: in our case, with the President and the Congress. If these two follow economic policies inimical to the general welfare, they are accountable to the people for their actions on election day. With Federal Reserve independence, however, a body of men exist who control one of the most powerful levers moving the economy and who are responsible to no one. — Wright Patman

And California, long a bellwether for national trends in the United States, has tilted the balance further in favor of voter over party preferences: it agreed by popular referendum in 2011 to have all primary candidates appear on a single ballot, with the top two vote-getters moving on to the general election regardless of party. — Moises Naim

If you're running to be president of the United States, you can't just tell people you're going to make America great again. I think you need to begin to explain exactly how you're going to do it policy-wise. We're not going to win a general election with a candidate that refuses to detail policy. — Marco Rubio

When I was first elected I got 50% of the vote in '77 in the general election. In '81 I got 75%. In '85, I got 78%. No mayor has ever gotten that high a vote. So it was not an issue. Except for people who were very hostile to me. They thought they would injure me. — Ed Koch

Donald Trump talks about how he's not going to be controlled by the moneyed interests. Do people understand that he's not giving money to his campaign, he's loaning it because he expects to get money back from those same big donors he decries right now? He's planning on running a general election based upon raising money from those very people. — Mitt Romney

He [Donald Trump] said in the debate - he said, gosh, I'm being audited for two years. Then he said three years. Then he said maybe five years.Listen, if there's a problem in his taxes, the voters have a right to know, because come September, October, the general election, folks in the media are going to make a heyday about any problems in his taxes. — Ted Cruz

The right to participate in the choice of representatives for Congress includes, as we have said, the right to cast a ballot and to have it counted at the general election whether for the successful candidate or not. — Harlan F. Stone

There wasn't a Scottish nationalist MP elected at any general election when we were outside the E.U. — Michael Gove

Several amendments should be made to the primary and general election laws to improve them, but such changes must in no way interfere with a full and free expression of the people's choice in naming the candidates to be voted on at general elections. — Arthur Capper

The Conservative Party isn't electing a leader in opposition after losing a general election who can build up over five years and gain experience. We're electing somebody who's going to be our prime minister in two months' time, and that's why it's very important we have somebody with strong experience, who's good at working with the international community and can hit the ground running. — Chris Grayling

I shall not rest until, once again, the destinies of our people and our party are joined together again in victory at the next general election Labour in its rightful place in government again. — Tony Blair

In the general election, Nixon refined Goldwater's southern strategy. Unlike Goldwater, who "ran as a racist candidate," Nixon said, the 1968 GOP nominee campaigned on racial themes without explicitly mentioning race. "Law and order" replaced "states' rights." Pledging to weaken the enforcement of civil rights laws replaced outright opposition to them. Nixon "always couched his views in such a way that a citizen could avoid admitting to himself that he was attracted by a racist appeal," said his top aide, John Ehrlichman. — Ari Berman

The lesson of the Clinton years and of Obama's win of both the nomination and the general election in 2008 is that Democrats need to be as tough as JFK was. — Jon Meacham

President Obama was the first president not to abide by the limits in the general election. — David Brooks

If there are further steps to European integration, the people should have their say at a general election or in a referendum. — Tony Blair

One of Governor Romney's aides today on television said that Governor Romney, after he wins the primaries, will be like an [Etch A Sketch] - you take whatever he said and you can shake it up and it will be gone, and he's going to draw a whole new picture for the general election. — Rick Santorum

When it came to the 2000 election, 84 percent of Ivy League faculty voted for Al Gore, 6 percent for Ralph Nader and 9 percent for George Bush. In the general electorate, the vote was split at 48 percent for Gore and Bush, and 3 percent for Nader. — Walter E. Williams

I am still as much concerned as ever about the Battle of Armageddon; but I am not so much concerned about the General Election. — G.K. Chesterton

The key to winning any general election in the USA is to excite your base and then expand your base - get independent voters and voters who haven't been voting for your party to come to your party. — Rand Paul

Our problem in the 2015 general election was that for all the good stuff that was in the Labour manifesto, we were still going to be freezing public sector wages, cutting council expenditure, laying off civil servants. We were offering 'austerity light' instead of a real alternative. — Jeremy Corbyn

There are three opportunities that you have during a general election campaign where you can substantially move the needle of public opinion. One, is your convention speech; two, are the base; three, is the selection of your vice president. — Mark McKinnon

This toy of voting was almost as pleasing as the conch. Jack started to protest but the clamor changed from the general wish for a chief to an election by acclaim of Ralph himself. None of the boys could have found good reason for this; what intelligence had been shown was traceable to Piggy while the most obvious leader was Jack. But there was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out: there was his size, and attractive appearance; and most obscurely, yet most powerfully, there was the conch. The being that had blown that, had sat waiting for them on the platform with the delicate thing balanced on his knees, was set apart. — William Golding

Something new is blowing. On a downtown Kingston wall: IMF - Is Manley Fault. General election called for October 30, 1980. Somebody is driving you through Bavaria, near the Austrian border. A hospital sprouting out of the forest like magic. Hills in the background tipped with snow like cake icing. You meet the tall and frosty Bavarian, the man who helps the hopeless. He smiles but his eyes are set too far back and they vanish in the shadow of his brow. Cancer is a red alert that the whole body is in danger, he says. Thank God the food he forbids, Rastafari had forbidden long time. A sunrise is a promise. Something new is blowing. November 1980. A new party wins the general election and the man who killed me steps up to the podium with his brothers to take over the country. He has been waiting for so long he leaps up the stairs and trips. — Marlon James

The general election's taking place today in Iraq, so I guess that means we're one step closer to being there for another 10 years. — David Letterman

I also want to draw attention to the responsibilities that people have to live up to their election promises and to live up to the votes that were cast by the people of Wales, in the General Election, in the expectation that we would deliver this promise. — Ron Davies

In the 1990s, the Lib Dems won a string of byelections at the expense of struggling Conservative governments. Christchurch, Ribble Valley and Eastbourne went straight back to the Tories at the next general election, but the Lib Dems held their later byelection gains - Eastleigh, Newbury and Romsey - in at least two subsequent general elections. — Michael Ashcroft

Sovereignty, for the same reason as makes it in alienable, cannot be represented; it lies essentially in the general will, and will does not admit of representation: it is either the same, or other; there is no intermediate possibility. The deputies of the people, therefore, are not and cannot be its representatives: they are merely its stewards, and can carry through no definitive acts. Every law the people has not ratified in person is null and void
is in fact, not a law. The people of England regards itself as free; but it is grossly mistaken; it is free only during the election of members of parliament. As soon as they are elected, slavery overtakes it, and it is nothing. The use it makes of the short moments of liberty enjoys shows indeed that it deserves to lose them. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Our [Republicans'] object is to avoid having stupid candidates who can't win general elections, who are undisciplined, can't raise money, aren't putting together the support necessary to win a general election campaign, because this money is too difficult to raise to be spending it on behalf of candidates who have little chance of winning in a general election. — Karl Rove

I always believed that WikiLeaks as a concept would perform a global role, and to some degree it was clear that it was doing that as far back as 2007 when it changed the result of the Kenyan general election. — Julian Assange

My mission is to lead the country out of a bad situation of corruption, depression and slavery. After I rid the country of these vices, I will then organize and supervise a general election of a genuinely democratic civilian government. — Idi Amin