Candidate Performance Quotes

Despite my excellent mood, I don't have any sympathy for Romney. If he'd been a good candidate he wouldn't have had a different campaign for every month on the calendar.

Party leaders aren't responsible for every candidate's gaffe.

I'm very disappointed with the McCain campaign. In my opinion, it was inept.

It's fascinating watching the debates [of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump], with the search for the new president. It's like a car crash, unfolding in front of your eyes. The level of personal attacks!

There was an analyst who came out the other day who's had a long track record of projecting presidential campaigns based on the economy and other kind of factors. And he said if [Donald] Trump stays about where he is right now, he'll win at about 51 or 52 percent. If Trump actually gets his act together in a disciplined way, he could win by as much as 66 percent.

The outcome of an election depends on the candidate, not the people on the sidelines [advisors, handlers, etc.]

I would say the reason that Tim Bishop electorally was able to get more votes, if you were just going to analyze registration and numbers, is that he had a quarter of the Republican vote, every election. No one is getting a quarter of the Republican vote from me.

Remember the first debate between [Mitt] Romney and [Barack] Obama? Let's revisit it for a second. It's interesting to note the way the Drive-Bys played it. The first Romney-Obama debate, there was real concern after that debate that Obama didn't show up.

The 2009 elections were the first my party faced. Still MNS candidates lost by lesser margins. Each of my candidate got more than one lakh votes.

Sooner or later, presidential campaigns would have professional actors as candidates who could speak the lines.

I think the American people want to see the interactivity between candidates and audiences, and tough questions posed by people and how you handle them under fire.

And that was always our plan. Do well in the first three states, and then compete and have a very strong night on Super Tuesday. I think we're ideally positioned to do exactly that.

I always run ahead of the ticket [compared to Democratic presidential candidates]. But this time there were a lot of people that just voted party line, a lot more than usual.

I'm angry that George Bush got to be in the White House, and I'm angry that [Al] Gore wasn't able to be a better candidate after eight years of a great economy and being an incumbent.

Reagan won because he ran against Jimmy Carter. If he ran unopposed he would have lost.

[Donald Trump] was a better candidate; that's how he won.

There's always a risk when the candidate becomes president: Will he deliver what is expected of him?

Marco Rubio has got the number one worst attendance record, and they want him to be president, right?

I'm one of these people that, once you have had your election and you have elected your candidate, let's see what actually happens.

I believe Donald Trump is a good man. He did everything wrong as a candidate, and he won, and I don't understand it. Other than I think God put him there.

Just look at who won the third debate between Bush and Gore. I knew Bush won, because people liked him more. People just didn't like Gore. But all the journalists thought Gore won big, he cleaned the guy's clock.

Ted Cruz has struggled, and Donald Trump, of course, has been the big winner the last two outings. And the polling that we have, some of it is a week old. In fact, I think that's the latest poll suggests that he has a strong lead here. And therefore should be expected to win.

When Jeb Bush came on the shows and couldn't answer questions about Iraq, and when he looked like he was unsteady, it absolutely solidified the concerns that they had had all along about his skills.

The increase in straight-ticket party voting in recent years means that competitive congressional races can tip one way or the other depending on the showing of the candidates at the top of the ticket.

Jeb Bush brought it up at the debate and he was doing it very well, and all of a sudden, I don't know what happened, but he got shut down.