Policy Knowledge Quotes

A candidate’s command of foreign policy acts as a proxy for assessing broader leadership abilities.

I think that I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm gonna think I'm a better political director than my political director.

People know more about baseball players' contracts than they do about the policies that govern the fate of our children's lives in twenty years. Think about it. People used to say, the whole time I was growing up, 'Do you want to bring a child into this world?' That's pretty dire.

A lot of people in government don't really read books at all.

Plenty of candidates don’t write their own foreign policy position papers, but Romney is unusual in that he seems not to have even read his.

Bill Clinton’s only experience with foreign policy is the fact that he had breakfast at the International House of Pancakes.

When you look at 'policy wonk' in the dictionary, the one picture you won't see is Donald Trump.

I readily admit I was not an expert on foreign policy but I was knowledgeable and I didn't need a man who was the Vice President of the United States and my opponent turning around and putting me down.

When a president doesn't know the policy, it doesn't make for a very effective leader.

Running for office is important, and you don't really need more than to be right on the issues, and to be able to articulate what it is you believe. You don't need a certain background. You don't need to be a lawyer. You don't need to have some professional degree.

With respect to the legal justifications or the policies relating to the treatment of detainees, I was not aware of any issues on that or the legal memos that subsequently came out until the summer, sometime in 2004, when there started to be news reports on that.

I'm very literate on policy. I'm very literate on the issues, and I'm an American first. I've been involved in politics long before I was an actress. I just happen to have a platform now. I just happen to have a voice.

Despite the administration's long public information campaign, for many months polls have consistently indicated only 37 percent of those eligible for Medicare say they only partially understand the program.

Bush had expertise in one thing: How to run a Presidential campaign. He understands campaigns and Presidential politics. He has no interest or disposition or I think probably - he's not stupid, but he's not bright, he's not a rocket scientist - he isn't interested in policy.

[Donald Trump ] would make history in so many ways because he is a candidate who eschewed the traditional arts of political campaigns, including field organization, traditional advertising, debate preparation and policy knowledge.

Biden is actually a wonk at heart. Despite his gaffes, he's very cerebral.

I felt completely ready to become prime minister. I came to office better equipped, in terms of knowledge of economics and of the Australian economy, than anyone before me, or since, I would say.

I consider myself to be as informed on American foreign policy as anyone in America.

Clinton is a very capable, conscientious person. I think she cares very deeply about policy. She knows a lot about how the government works, and I think those things are very important. You don't really appreciate those things until you get a guy like George W. Bush in the White House, and then you realize that when you don't have someone who knows or cares about government policy, a lot of bad stuff can happen.

It's not good enough to just know what to say about the policy; it's really important to take the extra step to learn the policy, to be able to understand it, and articulate it.

Hillary Clinton doesn't know anything about my policy. I mean, she wouldn't know anything about it.

The reason the Betsy DeVos case was the centerpiece case for the Democrats wasn't about her weakness as a knowledgeable person on education policy.

I feel like I have more in common with conservative people who have activist causes in their hearts and who are interested in electoral politics than I do with somebody who doesn't care, doesn't have any political interests, doesn't know what policy is, and doesn't think any of it matters to them. If you care, we're actually going to have a basis of conversation. We might supplementally get along very well, and that might be complicated and fun in a way that is more constructive than you'd expect.

Knowing policy does help make the gossip more understandable.

Hillary Clinton doesn't know what she's doing except open borders and let everybody come in and destroy America by the way.