Alexandra Petri Quotes

When most presidents get in, they move to the center because they realize that this is a centrist country - even Reagan.

Competition for votes sends parties in a two-party system toward the center.

I've been watching and involved in presidential politics since 1960 when I first voted, and the Republican, the conservative candidate in the primary is always going to lean right and come back to the center for the general - the opposite for the Democrat.

Successful presidential campaigns follow a two-part strategy. For Republicans, Richard Nixon described it as running to the right in the primaries and running back to the center in the general election. For Democrats, the idea is to go to the left in the primaries, then to the center.

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. In recent times, each election year has seen each party's nominee selected - or at least subject to veto - by its most extreme wing and then forced to try to move back to the center before the general election. This can only undermine the public's confidence in the integrity of the candidates of both parties.

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

You will never satisfy the far extremes on the Left and the Right.

Friends, there is no Left in American politics.

Well, the tough thing for them is that the Republican primary is pretty far over to the right, just as the Democratic primary is further over to the left than the average voter in each party.

There are too many political moderates in America.

There were more moderate Republicans in those days than there are today.

The field of politics always presents the same struggle. There are the Right and the Left, and in the middle is the Swamp. The Swamp is made up of know-nothings, of them who are without ideas, of them who are always with the majority.

America today is going to the left and not to the right.

If we look conservative, it's because the other guys are so far to the left.

The center of gravity of the American people is way to the left of the center of gravity of Congress and, in many ways, to the left of the national Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party went far to the left, I think, and left some of us stranded on the beach, so we went to the Republican Party.

As the Republican Party has moved farther and farther to the right, I have found myself increasingly at odds with the Republican philosophy and more in line with the philosophy of the Democratic Party.

A government full of Democrats would rather have you be a Republican, and a government full of Republicans would rather have you be a Democrat, than have you oppose both.

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.

You have to have been a Republican to know how good it is to be a Democrat.

Centrism is bogus.

Now, most of the time I'm going to agree with the Democrats and disagree with the Republicans.

Manhattan's probably one of the bluest parts in the country, and Indiana's definitely one of the redder states. I have sympathy for both sides.

The nature of our two main political parties has changed in the United States.

There's something about Barack Obama that induces Americans to imagine what they cannot see. The Right envisions a vile socialist, while many on the Left picture an inspired liberal, politically restrained in his first term but now free to pursue his true beliefs.