Dick Morris Quotes - Page 3

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.

There is literally no such thing as an idea that cannot be expressed well and articulately to today's voters in thirty seconds.

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.

In fighting scandal, the key is not to overreact.

Every donation received is a potential negative ad. Vetting money is just as important as raising it.

It is from the center that leaders must lead.

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.

The opposing party rarely causes so much angst as does one's own.

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.'

Leadership is a dynamic tension between where a politician thinks his country must go and where his voters want it to go.

Today, a politician does not just need public support to win elections; he needs it to govern.

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.

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.

The key to running a campaign on the cheap is to avoid spending money on anything other than projecting a message.

The stronger Hillary is, the weaker she is. The more she seems like a likely presidential winner, the more difficult the senate race becomes in New York. It's perfect.

No true patriot could be for Ron Paul.

Yes' is a far more potent word than 'no' in American politics. By adopting the positions which animate the political agenda for the other side, one can disarm them and leave them sputtering with nothing to say.

Those crazies in Montana who say, 'We're going to kill ATF agents because the UN's going to take over' - well, they're beginning to have a case.

We in politics are accustomed to seeing reality firsthand and then watching its distant cousin, events as portrayed by the media, unfold on our televisions. We know that what happened in Congress and what is reported to have taken place are two very different things. But that disjuncture, so familiar to politicians, is new to the viewing public. By seeing war and war coverage juxtaposed nightly on their screens, Americans have learned the crucial lesson: not to trust the news anchors.

[T]he harm [Clinton AG] Reno did to American national security in the fight against terror was incalculable.

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.

Each morning we sat reading our copy of the New York Times, the Washington Post or the Los Angeles Times and ruminated on their prophecies of doom and quagmire. Then we looked up to see, on television, correspondents actually embedded with our troops, reporting quick advances, one- sided firefights, melting opposition and, finally, welcoming crowds.

...nobody would think of asking the U.N. General Assembly what it thinks because it is dominated by nations with no power and less legitimacy

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.

I love Karl Rove. He elected Bush.