For all its considerable merits and inspirational principles, the American system is based upon a continuous uninterrupted process of election campaigns, stretching out year after year. Lost in the perpetual scramble is any long-term vision.
politics can be an ugly game, and in a national election the stakes get higher while the tactics get lower.
Savages cling to a local god of one tribe or town. The broad ethics of Jesus were quickly narrowed to village theologies, which preach an election or favoritism.
In Sumter and other counties [in South Carolina] the whites are resorting to intimidation and violence to prevent the colored people from organizing for the elections. The division there is still on the color line. Substantially all the whites are Democrats and all the colored people are Republicans. There is no political principle in dispute between them. The whites have the intelligence, the property, and the courage which make power. The negroes are for the most part ignorant, poor, and timid. My view is that the whites must be divided there before a better state of things will prevail.
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.
I do not deny the possibility that the people may err in an election; but if they do, the true [cure] is in the next election, and not in the treachery of the person elected.
The Pavlovian view of women voters - plug the words in, and they will respond - sends a chill down my spine because it sounds like an adaptation of something I have written about communication between the sexes: When a woman tells a man about a problem, she doesn't want him to fix it; she just wants him to listen and let her know he understands. But there's a difference between a private conversation and a presidential election, between what we want from our leaders.
How Obama approaches judicial selection - and how Republicans respond - now becomes an important story and will remain so until the Senate shuts down judicial confirmations, probably in the summer of 2016 if Senate custom in presidential-election years is followed.
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.
After the November elections gave Republicans control of the Senate, voters made clear they wanted change. We were hopeful our leaders got the voters' message. However, after our speaker forced through the (spending bill) by passing it with Democratic votes and without time to read it, it seemed clear that we needed new leadership.
There are change elections and there are 'more of the same' elections, and there was a lot of economic anxiety in the 1992 election and (Bill Clinton) was able to drive a change narrative. after eight years of Barack Obama, it's very difficult to understand what kind of change it is that Hillary Clinton's candidacy could represent.
Well, so be it. Nothing's perfect in life, so you have an election that's not quite perfect. Is it better than not having an election? You bet.
It is always a practical difficulty with clubs to regulate the laws of election so as to exclude peremptorily every social nuisance. Nobody wishes bad manners. We must have loyalty and character.
We can not have free government without elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national election it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us.
This anonymous clan of slack-jawed troglodytes has cost me the election, and yet if I were to have them killed, I would be the one to go to jail. That's democracy for you.
I cannot go to elections with an open stomach. If you want to negotiate we have to conclude it before the elections. I cannot just start the negotiations [with Palestinians] saying we are ready to do this and that and not having any reply.
[Hamas] thought that if you go to elections you become a democrat for the rest of your life. They think that democracy is limited to one day in four years.
This 2016 election better be about the future, not the past. It better be about the issues our nation and the world is facing today, not simply the issues we once faced.
It's important to be qualified, but if election 2016 is a resume competition, then Hillary Clinton's gonna be the next president, because she's been in office and in government longer than anybody else.
The Western concept of democracy is based on the idea that the loser of an election has the possibility next time round of being the winner. But in the case of an ethnically or religiously divided country, in which minorities don't live peacefully together, this necessary balance can't be properly guaranteed by democracy. When each ethnic group arms itself, it is not surprising that the army of a new state is viewed by part of the population as an ideological militia.
My father was a mailman. His father was a coal miner. My mother's mother could barely speak English. And their son today stands on this podium in the great state of Ohio not only as the governor, but a candidate for president of the United States.I do believe in miracles.I've had a lot of elections. But my elections are really not about campaigns. I tell my people that these are about a movement.A movement to do things like provide economic growth. And a movement not to let anybody be behind.
Both of my parents were born into poor families on the island of Cuba. They came to America because it was the only place where people like them could have a chance.My father was a bartender. And the journey from the back of that bar to the [election 2016], to me, that is the essence of the American dream.
It seems like election 2016 has been a whole lot about a person who's very high in the polls, that doesn't have a clue about how to govern.A person who has been filled with scandals, and who could not lead, and, of course, I'm talking about Hillary Clinton.I think America is in trouble, but it's not beyond repair. But it's going to take leadership who sees the greatness of this country, and who believes that once again we can be one nation, under God.
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.
We need to review the process for the election of Speaker. We've got to reform Question Time, which is really a waste of time. There are so many things that we need to do to reform our Parliament and I think it's bigger than that. It's all about the sort of leadership that people are getting at the moment. They're fed up with this sorta day-to-day bickering, not putting the national interest ahead of these narrow partisan interests.
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