Denise Dresser Quotes

Absolutely. I think that this is - politics is a tough business. I describe it as a full contact sport. You have to be prepared to get in there and mix it up.

Ah, political physics. Someone wins an election and, poof, they are a candidate for vice president. Ridiculous.

In politics you learn to always smile.

I had the vocation for politics. What I didn't have was any aptitude for political combat. I took the attacks personally, which is a great mistake. It's never personal: It's just business. It was ever thus.

It is always a disappointment to turn from forthright consideration of some subject - whether from the Left or the Right, a poet or a plumber - to the Beltway version, in which the only aspects of the issue that matter are the effects it will have on the fortunes of the two parties and the various men in power.

There are no techniques in politics.

The problem is that the right doesn't need any ideas to govern, but the left can't govern without ideas.

Politics is like football; if you see daylight, go through the hole.

Obama considers himself above deal-making and back-slapping, political necessities he often delegates to Vice President Joe Biden and other lesser sorts.

In the end, I think part of my problem was that I was a better legislator than I was a politician.

When you are President you have to get something done, and that often means compromise.

Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable, the art of the next best.

[Politics in America is:] A chess tournament disguised as a circus.

Today being President is really no different than running for President. It’s about approval ratings and photo ops and damage control and deniability.

In politics people know how to communicate without having to meet in back rooms.

In politics you have to say, compared to what?

The Republican leadership thinks the best way to avoid losing elections is to let the Democrats win every controversial issue.

I'm absolutely fine with the rough and tumble of politics.

Democrats, more often than not, do not play the game of politics correctly.

I understand the politics of Washington, D.C. You need to hold firm, you need to work with your colleagues, and you need to throw elbows.

Politics is not about schmoozing, it's about boxing. And you have to enter the arena; you have to come close enough that your face would ready the face of the other guy; and the price is that he can reach your face.

There is a difference between being a political force, or a political apparent force or a potential force, and between a real discourse or a real argument.

A legislator must know how to take advantage of even the defects of those he wants to govern. The art consists in making others work rather than in wearing oneself out.

Politics is a dirty business, but if you do not do politics, politics will be done to you.

Politics is not a science...but an art.