Policy Direction Quotes

No adviser to a president is going to get his way all of the time, but at a minimum, that adviser should be able to defend the tilt of an administration's policy as if it were his own. If not, he should make room for those who can.

Any President can control the agenda.

It is very important that the president thematically shows where we're going in terms of the vision and an agenda.

Most Republicans have lined up behind the Trump foreign policy agenda, while Democrats lack a cohesive, unifying message or guiding philosophy on where they would lead the country internationally if in power.

In my view, a political vision is not a grab-bag of discrete problems and solutions. It is the visionary anticipation of a direction.

A policy needs a clear goal.

It's not trickle down economics. The problem that the president has is that he's rudderless on the economy. I mean, he doesn't quite know what to do. It's a wake-up on Monday and try to figure it out. It takes time to turn a supertanker, so you need to know where you need to go.

[Donald] Trump has more of a mandate than any president since Ronald Reagan.

… policy has shaped intelligence more than vice versa.

I believe that marriage has served society well, and I believe it is important to affirm that, that marriage between a man and a woman is the ideal. And the job of the President is to drive policy toward the ideal.

We always need the support of the Centre.

As the master politician navigates the ship of state, he both creates and responds to public opinion. Adept at tacking with the wind, he also succeeds, at times, in generating breezes of his own.

It's often said of American politics that it's a huge juggernaut and the president can change the direction by two or three degrees in either direction, but not much more. In fact, I think the president's power is limited, much more than the prime minister in England.

Republicans are the party of 'no,' and Democrats are the party of 'don't know' because it hasn't fought for bold ideas, policies, or plans to turn us in a new direction.

Our experience with ad hoc wartime and post-hostilities agencies operating in the foreign field has demonstrated that not only are new agencies of little value in executing policies which go beyond the vision and the educational horizon of their own personnel, but that they actually develop a momentum of their own which, in the final analysis, tends to shape—rather than to serve—the national policy.

President Trump is boldly moving in what I would call rather extreme directions. And that is going to set into motion a reaction, and it already has... He builds the strength on the other side to combat climate change.

The President, the Administration and the campaign need a theme. I am concerned that the President is seen as a tactician without an overall strategy of his plan for the country.

The national Democratic leadership is going so far left, they've left America. Don't let them bury the American dream in their graveyard of gloom and envy.

[Obama's reelection] would subject the country to what might be a fatal last dose of statism.

I don't think it is ever enough for a governing majority to simply be opposed to things. We have to be for things.

We need to be fearful of companies that get so big that they can actually be directing policy.

I'd rather frame [Clintons] in terms of what I think we need to do going forward.

We need a big debate in society about how we are going to shape Europe and tame capitalism. A government must provide direction and make concrete proposals. It is one of Angela Merkel's biggest failings that she doesn't do this.

In the modern world, those who are weak will get unambiguous advice from foreign visitors which way to go and what policy course to pursue.

Governments are best classified by considering who are the 'somebodies' they are in fact endeavouring to satisfy.