Bill Clinton Quotes

Most pundits regard an election year session as an opportunity for the two parties to frame issues and garner political advantage in advance of the approaching election.

Democrats tend to think of elections as cycles. Republicans don't: It's ongoing and constant.

Anytime James Carville, Paul Begala and David Axelrod hold hands and jump for joy, it's worth pondering how to turn their joy into tears.

Our adversaries - our Democratic adversaries - like to be able to portray the Republican Party as a bunch of wingnuts - narrow based, always have some agenda that's not attractive to the public... That's easier for them, and more fun, than dealing with their own problems. And I think their problems are significant.

The Republican Party is terrific at determining how a program will impact the federal budget, but we're not nearly as good as the Democrats in explaining to people how our agenda will directly benefit them and their families.

The Republicans always looked bad three years out of four. But the year they look good is election year.

If you want to live like a Republican, vote Democratic.

One of the favorite tricks of the Democrats is to try to get the Republicans to pass over their strongest candidate and nominate instead a candidate who will be easy to beat.

I think the Democratic Party has to learn how to be a party of opposition.

I had just as much support from Republicans as I did Democrats when I ran for president. But I should have organized the Democratic Party to get me re-elected.

I don't have the luxury of just hanging out in my primary and, once I win the primary, I'm fine. I have to talk to Democrats and Republicans.

After helping the Republican National Committee address some of the troubling deficiencies the party faced after 2012, as outlined in its so-called autopsy report, and witnessing some real progress in our outreach to women in the ensuing years, I did not expect an egomaniacal arsonist to come along and set all that ablaze.

Over the years, Democrats have had a lot of very talented individuals, but they have lacked fighters.

The Republican Party does not want to defeat Democrats.

The Democrats don't like the Tea Party because the Tea Party engineered their defeat. The Republicans, some members, don't like the Tea Party because the Tea Party illustrates what they have to do to win and they're not really comfortable with that.

As you all know by now, Barack Obama sent out a cell phone text message at 3 a.m. on Saturday morning to tell everyone he picked Joe Biden as his vice president. How do you think this makes Hillary Clinton feel, huh? Finally, she gets a telephone call at 3 a.m., it's to tell her they picked Joe Biden.

I think Republicans need to do a better job of reaching out to everyone in the United States. Politics is always about getting the support of the majority of our people.

We know better than to think that Republicans can win only on the failures of Democrats. It still comes down to a contest of ideas, which is really good news, ladies and gentlemen, because when it's about ideas, the advantage goes to us. Against their dreary backdrop of arrogant bureaucracies, pointless mandates, reckless borrowing, willful retreat from the world and all that progressives have in store for us, the Republican Party stands as a great enduring alternative party.

I think Bernie Sanders understands better than anyone the chasm that exists between a Democratic - the Democrats and the Republicans when it comes to being there for America's working families, and that's what he's about, and that's what we're about as Democrats.

There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans.

I think Hillary Clinton has a lot of lee way to go, either direction, and to probably most likely try to fudge it and get both parts of the party into talking points.

What I'm saying is we [Democratic Party] need to get much more granular.

I think the minimum wage will be the centerpiece of the State of Union. I think it should be the centerpiece of the State of the Union. And it should be very focused on that because, as you said, Republicans in the rest of the country are for it.

We need to send Barack Obama back to Chicago - I'd like to send him back to Kenya, back to Indonesia. But not only that - we absolutely need to retake the Senate. It is imperative that we take the Senate.

Look at Jeb Bush, $115 million and Jeb actually stated in December 2014 that he was going to win this primary by not winning it. He was going to win it without winning base voters. They have made it clear they want nothing of their base. They're embarrassed of their base.