Joe Klein Quotes

I would give the people of America to their first opportunity to elect a president who doesn't belong to either party since George Washington.

You mentioned Ross Perot. Mr. Perot jumped into the race at the last minute, had one issue that he ran on, the budget deficit, was in and out of the race a couple of times, and still got 20 million votes, didn't have the Internet.

I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000, but I will not make that mistake again. The joke is over for Nader. He was funny once, but now he belongs to the dead.

If you had found the right candidate in 2000 or 2004, and you could have put that man or woman, given them ballot access in September of the election year, they could have won the election.

Well, first of all, I was asked by Ross Perot on a telephone call in March of 1992 if, since he had committed on the Larry King Show to becoming a candidate for president, to get on all 50 ballots.

Presidential election results in 2008 and 2012 clarified that talk radio was not, in fact, running the country.

I don't buy the argument that there can't be a successful independent candidacy for the presidency of the United States. People who say, 'It can't happen,' are many of the same people who said we'd never elect an African American.

The 2016 presidential election is ripe for the emergence of a game-changing political leader who either dramatically reforms one of the existing parties or mounts an independent bid.

Mitt Romney has outdone himself in choosing Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate.

I'm proud that Colorado delivered a victory to Barack Obama in 2008 and we will do so again in 2012.

I know Obama, I like Obama, I voted for Obama.

I believe we will elect a new President in 2012.

There's not a single day when I walk the streets of New York City when someone doesn't come up to me to say: 'Please, please, ask your dad to run for president.' We really need a businessman as leader of our country, not a politician.

Sarah Palin, who with 17 months remaining in her single term as Alaska's governor quit the only serious office she has ever held, is obsessively discussed as a possible candidate in 2012. Why? She is not going to be president and will not be the Republican nominee unless the party wants to lose at least 44 states.

The Wendell Willkie campaign sprang from the grassroots of the country clubs of America

… to get the Republican nomination for President, you have to be an outsider.

I didn't realize that running as an independent would be perceived as a threat to the Democrats.

A lot of disgruntled Democrats that don't like Obama - old-line Democrats, some of them even conservative - will never vote for a Republican ticket, but they will vote for me as an independent.

Until Donald Trump got to where he was, they said you'll never see a rich businessman who's never been in politics be president. I clearly was wrong about that.

I predict after this whole thing is over, what we'll remember about the failed candidacy of Donald Trump is, 'You're fired.'

If I'm fortunate enough to get the nomination of the Constitution Party, I will take as many votes from Obama as I would from the Republican nominee.

That's, quite frankly, one of the reasons that President Trump was so popular on the campaign trail and that he won, quite frankly, is because he was kind of stating the obvious.

Think about Kennedy. Think about Carter. Think about Clinton. Think about Obama. They've all been in their forties and from outside Washington, or underdogs in one way or another. I just think that Americans are looking everywhere, saying, 'Hey, show me some authenticity. Show me somebody who's practical. Show me people who run things.'

Even at its most outrageous early moments, the Tea Party movement was treated to sober and at times breathless media coverage, to the point of being invited to co-host a presidential debate.

Texans and independent voters like to vote for somebody who is going to buck the status quo, and isn't going to do as he is told.