Party Organization, Party Building Quotes

[Commenting on Watergate:] Never again must America allow an arrogant, elite guard of political adolescents to by-pass the regular party organization and dictate the terms of a national election.

We communist party members should infiltrate among the bandits....we can organize them into the struggle of revolution.

To strengthen the grassroots at the party - at the party unit, at the county level, at the precinct level, and then to help motivate and facilitate the local grassroots to get out there and turn out the vote and boost turn out. And then to help govern in places where we do hold city councils and state legislatures.

Education in democracy must be carried on within the Party so that members can understand the meaning of democratic life, the meaning of the relationship between democracy and centralism, and the way in which democratic centralism should be put into practice. Only in this way can we really extend democracy within the Party and at the same time avoid ultra-democracy and the laissez-faire that destroys discipline.

In inner-party politics, these methods lead, as we shall yet see, to this: the party organization substitutes itself for the party, the central committee substitutes itself for the organization, and, finally, a "dictator" substitutes himself for the central committee.

All parties have one leader at the top who is the first among equals.

Being born on Halloween, there's always a party. It's a convenient birthday because you don't really have to organize a party.

Earlier today former Vermont Governor Howard Dean became the new head of the Democratic National Committee -- no word on who will be the neck.

If this [national Democratic Party] is a national party, sushi is our national dish. Today, our national Democratic leaders look south and say, "I see one-third of a nation and it can go to hell."

The regular Democratic Party and its organization was run by men who looked on women as little more than machine parts.

Democrats need an organizer who will energize the grass-roots across this country to build the party from the bottom up.

One of the big learnings both out of the referendum, and out of 2017 general election is that parties that don't have a professional network on the ground slightly lose the ability to hear what local people are saying, so we've reestablished our network of campaign managers out in the field.

Propaganda tries to force a doctrine on the whole people; the [party] organization embraces within its scope only those who do not threaten on psychological grounds to become a brake on the further dissemination of ideas.

I'm doing what Democrats said we needed to coming out of 2016, after that sobering defeat, which is to build a bench, to usher fresh faces and new voices and new ideas.

We're going to keep building the party until we're hunting Democrats with dogs.

I really do not want to carry some kind of party function.

George [Mitchell] introduced the idea that we'd go on a retreat [and] to really regularize caucuses. He's the one who had I think [Tom] Daschle become the Democratic Policy Committee chairman, so I think it lived through with Tom.

Party is organized opinion.

We cannot weaken or destroy political parties in ther United States without weakening or destroying the rule of the people.... Those who support party organization and submit to party discipline are supporting the only course yet discovered for orderly government by the people.

I've always done party building and party fundraising.

I threw a big-ass party. It turned out a bit different from Perry's [in That's Ordinary World], but it was pretty nuts. It wasn't me that threw it though, my wife threw me a surprise party. So [unlike Selma Blair's character] she didn't forget.

Party organization matters. When the door of a smoke-filled room is closed, there's hardly ever a woman inside.

I'd say the most important criteria is vision. What is your vision for the party? Do you have a vision to strengthen the grassroots and help them turn out people in their local communities? That's the real thing. The real question is not about one person. It's not about an individual. It's about millions of people working all over this country to reach out in their local communities. And the DNC chair has to help them do that and have a vision for that and have the energy for that.

Being a party chair, you really have a chance to make a difference. but what the Democrats have to do is recognize and accept the fact that they're at their lowest point [in 2017] since 1928 in the United States House of Representatives and their lowest point since 1925 in states.

There was a table laid with jellies and trifles, with a party hat beside each place, and a birthday cake with seven candles on it in the center of the table. The cake had a book drawn on it, in icing. My mother, who had organized the party, told me that the lady at the bakery said that they had never put a book on a birthday cake before, and that mostly for boys it was footballs or spaceships. I was their first book.