Elections & Campaigning

History will not judge our endeavors--and a government cannot be selected--merely on the basis of color or creed or even party affiliation. Neither will competence and loyalty and stature, while essential to the utmost, suffice in times such as these.

Courage--judgment--integrity--dedication--these are the historic qualities of the Bay Colony and the Bay State....And these are the qualities which, with God's help, this son of Massachusetts hopes will characterize our government's conduct in the four stormy years that lie ahead.

With such a complex network of platforms and sources to choose from, the nuance of how and when people seek out different places for information about the election becomes much more difficult to understand. The concept of a primary source of news-a gatekeeper that provides most of what a voter might know-seems obsolete.

Before you can win, you have to be humiliated.

Once you run for president, you always want to be president. My assumption is that once you’ve run, you’re going to run again

Elected politicians also should leave their ideological baggage behind because voters don't want to be governed from the left, the right, or even the center. They want someone in Washington who understands that the American people want to govern themselves.

No matter how convincingly you attribute the loss to bad timing or bad luck or lack of money — it’s impossible not to feel at some level as if you have been personally repudiated by the entire community, that you don’t quite have what it takes, and that everywhere you go, the word ‘loser’ is flashing through people’s minds. They’re the sorts of feelings that most people haven’t experienced since high school, when the girl you’d been pining over dismissed you with a joke in front of her friends, or you missed a pair of free throws with the big game on the line — the kinds of feelings that most adults wisely organize their lives to avoid.

The truth is, most people in this country are less interested in whether the Democrats or the Republicans win. They are most interested in whether America wins in the competition for the future.

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men could not get a few thousand ballots counted. The explanation, however, is timeless. We are a nation of men and women and, although we aspire to lofty principles, our methods at times are imperfect.

People don't elect you to inflict pain. They elect you to help guide this country forward.

Elections have a way of cooling passions, especially when voters get what they want.

Campaigns waged with lies presage governments racked by distrust. The sclerosis starts there.