More and more, the Democrats are not merely inconsistent, wrong and/or misguided - they are the worst of all possible things you can be in Washington: irrelevant.
Spin is overrated. It is strategy, not spin, that wins elections.
The greater informational levels of the voters, their decreasing inhibitions in expressing disagreement, and their greater preference for Jeffersonian direct involvement, all make the need for a 'permanent campaign' to sell a president's policies all the more crucial.
Take whatever position you want, but do take a position, because once you do, ample money awaits you on either side.
The most basic decision a modern politician must make is whether to be aggressive or conciliatory.
Every donation received is a potential negative ad. Vetting money is just as important as raising it.
The key to running a campaign on the cheap is to avoid spending money on anything other than projecting a message.
Leadership is a dynamic tension between where a politician thinks his country must go and where his voters want it to go.
Despite romantic fantasies about caring candidates who learn of America in donut shops, most politicians rely on media to teach them what concerns the average person.
Often GOP political strategy seems like the human wave theory of the Chinese military translated to politics. Where Beijing uses masses of soldiers to overwhelm their adversaries, the GOP uses huge campaign budgets as a substitute for strategy, thought or issues.
There is no substitute for a clear vision and a decisive direction.
In fighting scandal, the key is not to overreact.
The Darwinian adaptive trait of our time is the ability to figure out when we are being lied to on television.
A politician can do what he thinks is right, he just has to be sophisticated in how he goes about it. Those who seek a president who 'will disregard the polls and just lead,' ask for the political equivalent of 'The Charge of the Light Brigade.'
The White House will run itself while the president is away. That's why he has to be sure not to be away too much.
Rebut the negative, and the opposing campaign has not merely lost a skirmish, it has suffered almost irreparable damage. An effective rebuttal makes it hard for the campaign whose ad is destroyed to be believed about anything ever again.
The opposing party rarely causes so much angst as does one's own.
The typical presidential staff resents the vice-president even more than they do the first lady.
The key to controlling your own political party, so that it does not eat you alive, is to realize that while Democratic and Republican leaders differ sharply, their voters do not.
There is literally no such thing as an idea that cannot be expressed well and articulately to today's voters in thirty seconds.
Today, a politician does not just need public support to win elections; he needs it to govern.
It is from the center that leaders must lead.
Like the battleships of old, omnibus programs present too tempting a target, too easily destroyed by a single attack, to make it through a fight.... It is through incremental change after change, step after step, that a statesman of today can vindicate a bold vision.
I probably had 150 meetings with Trent Lott. He has said exactly as many racist things to me as Bill Clinton has, which is to say zero.
If you're going to be a sexual predator, be a Democrat.
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