In every election in American history both parties have their clichés. The party that has the clichés that ring true wins.
Success depends on three things: who says it, what he says, how he says it; and of these three things, what he says is the least important.
[A politician] can have prejudices—indeed he must have prejudices and share all the popular political superstitions of the moment as ardently as he can. But he must not have principles. He must never let the people suspect that they cannot eat their cake and have it. He must promise them a defense program and a higher standard of living. He must never use that dreadful little word or.
The great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often even more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.
He still knows how to rouse his rabble, how to reach out to poor people, and sic them on other poor people. How much of this nonsense does he believe, I wonder, and how much does he say just because he knows the value of dividing in order to conquer and to rule?
A politician’s words reveal less about what he thinks about his subject than what he thinks about his audience.
The first law of politics: Never say anything in a national campaign that anyone might remember.
A culture’s ability to understand the world and itself is critical to its survival. But today we are led into the arena of public debate by seers whose main gift is their ability to compel people to continue to watch them.
The politicians . . . talked themselves red, white, and blue in the face.
Sometimes in the deafening clamor of political statesmanship, I’ve thought that the people might be better served if a party purchased a half hour of radio and television silence during which the audience would be asked to think quietly for themselves.
It is said that every people has the government it deserves. It is more to the point that every government has the electorate it deserves; for the orators of the front bench can edify or debauch an ignorant electorate at will.
We expect them to lie to us. We grant them latitude to lie. . . . We don’t expect them to tell the truth about power any more than we expect movie stars to tell the truth about love.
No one has to twist his words because what he says is twisted enough. He speaks fluent pretzel.
I heard the speech. But they don’t give a damn about that. Hell, make ’em cry, or make ’em laugh, make ’em think you’re their weak erring pal, or make ’em think you’re God-a-Mighty. Or make ’em mad. Even mad at you. Just stir ’em up. . . . That’s what they come for. Tell ’em anything. But for sweet Jesus’s sake don’t try to improve their minds.
The politician is . . . trained in the art of inexactitude. His words tend to be blunt or rounded, because if they have a cutting edge, they may later return to wound him.
It’s very unfair to expect a politician to live in private up to the statements he makes in public.
A politician is required to listen to humbug, talk humbug, condone humbug. The most we can hope for is that we don’t actually believe it.
Once a country is habituated to liars, it takes generations to bring the truth back.
