The debates are part of the unconscionable fraud that our political campaigns have become a format that defies meaningful discourse. They should be charged with sabotaging the electoral process. — Walter Cronkite
Donald Trump is probably the most successful debater in this country since Lincoln-Douglas. — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
The election is not a time to discuss serious issues. — Kim Campbell
Debate is healthy and no one in this chamber - starting with me - has a monopoly on being right. — Ted Kulongoski
Honest differences of views and honest debate are not disunity. They are the vital process of policy making among free men. — Herbert Hoover
Don’t debate people in the media when you can debate them in the marketplace. — Naval Ravikant
Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future. — John F. Kennedy
A good debate is not a war. It’s not even a tug-of-war… it’s more like a dance that hasn’t been choreographed. — Adam Grant
We need a president who's fluent in at least one language. — Buck Henry
The electorate is starved for honest debate and for the good governance that follows from it. — Bret Weinstein
When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser. — Socrates
American presidential elections usually amount to a series of overcorrections: Clinton begat Bush, who produced Obama, whose lax border policies fueled the rise of Trump. — Tucker Carlson
Then you have [Donald] Trump. So it could be the tightest, most hazardous race in political history and we can't afford to allow Trump to slither through. So that's where I'm at. — Tom Hayden
Short Presidential Debate Quotes
Do not debate! is one of my inventions. — Deng Xiaoping
No presidential candidate should visit Las Vegas without condemning organized gambling. — Ralph Nader
A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues. — Theodore Roosevelt
Debates conceal rather than reveal the truth. Truth is revealed in solitude. — Leo Tolstoy
Donald Trump is going to speak the truth to the American people. — Mike Pence
I'm here to declare myself an independent candidate for president of the United States. — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
In the scheme of our national government, the presidency is preeminently the people's office. — Grover Cleveland
I'll show you Obama's birth certificate when you show me Sarah Palin's high school diploma. — Bill Maher
Democratic Debate Quotes
The great issues facing us today are not Republican issues or Democratic issues. The political parties can debate the means, but both parties must embrace the end objective, which is to make America great again. — Lee Iacocca
Is the Labour Party to remain a democratic party in which the right of free criticism and free debate is not merely tolerated but encouraged? Or are the rank and file of the party to be bludgeoned or cowed into an uncritical subservience towards the leadership? — Michael Foot
Al Jazeera aired a new tape of Osama bin Laden. It was the usual stuff, he called Bush evil, the Great Satan, called him a war monger. Basically, the same thing you heard at last night's Democratic debate. — Jay Leno
There is danger that totalitarian governments, not subject to vigorous popular debate, will underestimate the will and unity of democratic societies where vital interests are concerned. — John F. Kennedy
The debates of that great assembly are frequently vague and perplexed, seeming to be dragged rather than to march, to the intended goal. Something of this sort must, I think, always happen in public democratic assemblies. — Alexis de Tocqueville
The Senate has unlimited debate; in the House, debate is ruthlessly circumscribed. There is frequent discussion as to which technique most effectively frustrates democratic process. — John Kenneth Galbraith
The national debate on health-care reform wildly misses the mark, with Democrats and Republicans alike arguing about who's going to pay rather than about what would actually make people healthy. — T. Colin Campbell
Now a great debate has been born. The thesis is Democratic Socialism. The antithesis is free-market capitalism. The Obama Democrats have posed the challenge. It is now up to the Republicans to pick it up and fight along these lines. — Dick Morris
Let me announce this to the American people tonight one of the best things about this debate, as a Democrat from Massachusetts, I have proposed eliminating, getting rid of the alternative minimum tax. — Richard Neal
Let there be no mistake, Sen Sanders, his campaign and the vigorous debate that we've had about how to raise incomes, how to reduce inequality, increase upward mobility, has been very good for the Democratic Party and for America. — Hillary Clinton
Political Debates Quotes
I only debate with serious political youth formations. Not a group of the racist Helen Zille's garden boys. — Julius Malema
If man is not made in the image of God, nothing then stands in the way of inhumanity. There is no good reason why mankind should be perceived as special. Human life is cheapened. We can see this in many of the major issues being debated in our society today. — Francis Schaeffer
I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience. — Ronald Reagan
By maintaining the separation of church and state, the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars. — Barry Goldwater
The best tribute we can pay Madiba is to ensure that our political debate focuses on issues of how best we can ensure that each South African child, whatever the circumstances of their birth, inherits freedom they can use. — Helen Zille
Much as I would have liked to respond factually and truthfully to each and every piece of misinformation spread by the Brexit campaign, it was important that I stayed out of the domestic political debate. It was David Cameron's task to win the UK referendum, not ours. — Jean-Claude Juncker
Truth is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless, by human interposition, disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them. — Thomas Jefferson
Political debate with liberals is basically impossible in America today because liberals are calling names while conservatives are trying to make arguments. — Ann Coulter
Our political debates today are corrosive and not reflective of the belief that Abe Lincoln espoused back in his day: that we are a great country because we are a good country. — Jon Huntsman, Jr.
Take our politicians: they're a bunch of yo-yos. The presidency is now a cross between a popularity contest and a high school debate, with an encyclopedia of cliches. — Saul Bellow
Presidential Campaign Quotes
I will build a great, great wall on our southern border. And I will have Mexico pay for that wall. — Donald Trump
In the 2004 presidential election, we saw a wonderful example of citizens making contributions. In fact, individual giving to both the Kerry and Bush campaigns was the highest in our nation's history. — Mark Shields
There is no excitement anywhere in the world, short of war, to match the excitement of the American presidential campaign. — Theodore White
The legions of reporters who cover politics don't want to quit the clash and thunder of electoral combat for the dry duty of analyzing the federal budget. As a consequence, we have created the perpetual presidential campaign. — Hugh Sidey
Let's not overlook, though, what we do know about the campaign finance scandal, and the fact the Chinese were involved in our presidential campaign and our congressional campaigns. — Fred Thompson
The Russian Federation has a growing Muslim minority, which is causing cultural and religious clashes. This is similar to mass immigration of Mexicans to America, and certain presidential candidates are tailoring their campaigns to get Mexican votes. — David Duke
When I hit the skins they all say, 'Damn Kane...
You knock out the Bush like a presidential campaign!' — Big Daddy Kane
In presidential campaign I released a 65-page file from the Syracuse University College of Law that showed poor grades, back in college, also. If I were plagiarizing consistently, my grades would have been better. — Joe Biden
When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending the best. — Donald Trump
In a presidential campaign, you can't lie. You can't hide what you are and what you want. You can't hide what kind of President you'll be. You can't keep on talking about nothing indefinitely and committing to nothing, you can't keep running away from debate, masking the challenges. — Nicolas Sarkozy
Presidential Election Quotes
Decisions made in Washington are more important to us than those made here in Dar es-Salaam. So, maybe my people should be allowed to vote in American presidential elections. — Julius Nyerere
Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets. — Barack Obama
The party of swindlers and thieves is putting forward its chief swindler and its chief thief for the presidency. We must vote against him, struggle against him. — Alexei Navalny
When we get a chance to take part in elections, I am ready to fight for leading positions, including in the presidential vote. — Alexei Navalny
President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob. — Rick Santorum
One of the most surreal moments in this election was after the third debate, when I heard a talking head say, Al Gore won on substance, on the issues. But you have to give the victory to Bush because he seems presidential. — Bradley Whitford
100 political parties put together can never defeat the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, come 2015 presidential election. — Patience Jonathan
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. — Mitt Romney
If you've got a business - you didn't build that. — Barack Obama
We have a presidential election coming up. And I think the big problem, of course, is that someone will win. — Barry Crimmins
Policy Debate Quotes
The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure... It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. — Barack Obama
We must shift the energy policy debate in America with an increased focus on alternative and renewable fuels and Congress must pass meaningful alternative fuels and incentive programs to help move the U.S. away from dependence on foreign oil. — Rick Renzi
By the beginning of the 20th century, the debate about monetary policy and the nation's financial system had been going on for over a century. — Jerome Powell
That does not mean that we must forego just and fair criticism, or refrain from opposition to policies which are debatable or which do not command our approval. — Bainbridge Colby
The sign of a good marriage is that everything is debatable and challenged; nothing is turned into law or policy. The rules, if any, are known only to the two players, who seek no public trophies. — Carolyn Heilbrun
We have a policy at Greenpeace that we no longer debate people who don't accept the scientific reality of anthropogenic climate change. — Ben Stewart
The extra curricular activity in which I was most engaged - debating - helped shape my interests in public policy. — Joseph Stiglitz
Any debate among politicians about monetary policy is counterproductive. — Gerhard Schroder
My goal in Baghdad was to facilitate a debate here in the United States on America's policy toward Iraq, a debate that's been sadly lacking. — Scott Ritter
The basis of the First Amendment is the hypothesis that speech can rebut speech, propaganda will answer propaganda, free debate of ideas will result in the wisest governmental policies. — Fred M. Vinson
Presidential Candidate Quotes
Better to live a day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep — Benito Mussolini
It's better to live one day as a lion than a dozen years as a sheep. — Charles M. Schulz
People with conservative temperaments don't become fighter pilots or presidential candidates - they're all that way to some extent. — Tucker Carlson
Obama a ‘light-skinned’ African-American ‘with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one. — Harry Reid
Like NASCAR race drivers or PGA golfers, why not require each of the [US presidential] candidates to cover their clothing, briefcases and staff with the logo patches of their corporate sponsors? — Jim Hightower
Who can guarantee that he [Alexander Milinkevich, a Belarussian opposition presidential candidate] is the most promising candidate capable of competing with the incumbent president? — Alexander Lukashenko
[American Communist Party] legally exists in the U.S.A., it nominates its candidates in the elections, including Presidential elections. — Joseph Stalin
I debated in high school! If you told things that weren't true or just made things out of whole cloth, you were penalized. It's too bad they don't apply the same standards to presidential candidates as they do to high school students. — Mark Hamill
I don't know if the presidential candidates are running for the White House or Animal House. — Bob Hope
It is true that all of the current presidential candidates once denied that they had any intention of running. But the fact that I am also a liar, doesn't make me a candidate. — Pat Paulsen
Margaret Thatcher once said, "If you want something talked about, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman." — Carly Fiorina
There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. — Gerald R. Ford
I went to a number of women's groups and said, "Can you help us find folks," and they brought us whole binders full of women. — Mitt Romney
The threshold by the Commission on Presidential Debates. In the words of the League of Women Voters, they are a fraud being perpetrated on the American public. — Jill Stein
A little tough talk in the midst of a campaign or as part of a presidential debate cannot obscure a record of 30 years of being on the wrong side of defense issues. — Dick Cheney
I had hoped that the current presidential campaign debates might educate the public as to what is really involved in the ongoing controversy over campaign financing. — James L. Buckley
I would say it's more important who the treasury secretary is than who the vice president is. If you want to have a debate here, I'd like a debate between potential treasury secretaries than the vice presidential debate. — Warren Buffett
Marco Rubio hit my hands. Nobody has ever hit my hands. I've never heard of this. What - look at those hands. Are they small hands? And he referred to my hands - if they're small, something else must be small. I guarantee you, there's no problem. I guarantee you. — Donald Trump
The first presidential debate was down in Florida. Residents spent all day putting plywood on their televisions. — David Letterman
The Commission on Presidential Debates is a corrupt stranglehold on our democracy. — Phil Donahue
Al Gore adopted three utterly different personas in three national presidential debates. — Rich Lowry
The debate corporation is a corporation. It's funded by corporations. It's relayed by media corporations to the public. It's created by the two parties, which are corporations. We should have public presidential debates all over America run by public institutions. — Ralph Nader
I have serious doubts about the value of debates in a presidential election. They tend to be a test of reaction time rather than a genuine exposition of the participants philosophies and programs. Further, in debate, candidates tend to overstate their views. In the 1960 situation I had a very practical objection: Nixon was widely known; Kennedy was not; dramatic debates would therefore help Kennedy. — Dwight D. Eisenhower
I'm pretty good at sticking to what I know. You don't see me social commentating on health-care or presidential debates. I talk about what I know because I'm petrified of being wrong. — Gary Vaynerchuk
The campaign in the media takes place in many different formats, such as in citizens forums or town - hall shows. And because we don't have a presidential system in Germany, people vote for parties instead of specific candidates. From the perspective of smaller parties, even one single televised debate is a detested anomaly, because only the lead candidates from the conservatives and the SPD take part. — Angela Merkel
The problem with these presidential debates like this is that you can't really prepare for them, because the questions are so individual and personal or even idiosyncratic. Secretary Hillary Clinton has a lot richer and deeper experience in doing these, obviously, than Donald Trump. — Michael Gerson
You saw that the other night in the debate, where some people said [Hillary Clinton] made virtually a fool of herself. This is not presidential material, believe me. What they say is false and slanderous in virtually every respect. — Donald Trump
Democracy needs to start with an open Presidential debate. So come on out and let's take back the promise of our democracy. — Jill Stein
It's time to override this fraud being committed on the American voter of the two-party tyranny of this private corporation of the Commission on Presidential Debates. — Jill Stein
Traditionally vice presidential debates don't move the needle one way or the other. They have largely been irrelevant and inconsequential. — Donald Trump
I don't expect us to cover all the issues of this campaign [2016] tonight, but I remind everyone, there are two more presidential debates scheduled. We are going to focus on many of the issues that voters tell us are most important, and we're going to press for specifics. — Lester Holt
Seventy-five percent of voters now [in September 2016], according to the latest poll, want third-party candidates included in the debate. We have the highest disapproval and distrust rates ever in our history for these two presidential candidates, which the system is doing everything it can to force down our throats. — Jill Stein
We also need to make sure women can be in charge of their reproductive health. We can't defund places like Planned Parenthood, where women can go for all kinds of healthcare services. While reproductive rights span much further than the pro-life/pro-choice debate, Donald Trump has actually said he wants to "punish" women for having abortions. And Mike Pence is quite possibly the most anti-choice vice presidential candidate in history. — Chrissy Teigen
Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz did their best Donald Trump impersonation. All three unleashing an unprecedented string of insults and attacks fit more for a barroom than a presidential debate stage. — Chris Hayes
These are party-sanctioned debates. This is a presidential election, you show up at the debates. These are the rules. We have a series of unwritten rules of how campaigns are run, and everybody has followed those rules consistently over the decades. And no one has really even seriously thought about breaking them. — Ryan Grim
When you have a 12-minute debate over whether lipstick on a pig refers to a demeaning comment about the vice presidential candidate, you know we're not talking about health reform, we're not talking about energy policy, we're not talking about balancing the budget. And you know, it's fairly stupid. — Newt Gingrich
Last night's vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin drew much higher ratings than the presidential debate. Did you know that? Yeah. Yeah, Biden attracted viewers who enjoyed his previous debate appearances, and Palin attracted viewers who enjoyed the movie 'Fargo.' — Conan O'Brien
On the issue of Iraq, it is my hope, and my challenge to my colleagues, that our debate will be based on what is best for the future of our nation and for Iraq, not what's best for a political party or presidential campaign. — Mitch McConnell
The very idea that there is no truth, but only the filter of narrative through which truth is invented is something I learned at the feet of the most leftist professors at Yale and am learning again from Sarah Palin during the Vice Presidential debate, and I find that very disorienting. — John Hodgman
Tonight the Republican presidential candidates had a big debate, 10 candidates. The last time that many rich white guys got together, I think Exxon merged with Mobil. — Jay Leno
During the Democratic presidential debate Howard Dean started off by apologizing to the crowd for having a cold. Then John Kerry apologized for once having a cold while serving his country in Vietnam. — Conan O'Brien
We are creating a political demolition derby, not a presidential debate. Those strange impulses in the American soul that have produced mud wrestling and The Gong Show seem to have claimed the national campaign. — Hugh Sidey
As someone who is in awe and grateful every day to be in a country where freedom of the press, free speech and free elections are a way of life, I am wowed, amazed and excited by the opportunity to moderate a 2012 presidential debate. — Candy Crowley
The not-visibly-insane Democrats all claim they'll get rough with the terrorists, but they can't even face Brit Hume. In case you missed this profile in Democrat machismo, the Democratic presidential candidates are refusing to participate in a debate hosted by Fox News Channel because the hosts are "biased." But they'll face down Mahmoud Ahmadinejad! At this, even Hillary Clinton was thinking, "Come on, guys - let's grow a pair." — Ann Coulter
The Commission on Presidential Debates must be replaced if we want to have a democracy in this country. — John B. Anderson
You know a Senate race is obviously a much smaller deal than a presidential race. What I think makes a very hard job considerably easier when you're going to debate is if you have reminded yourself - or somebody has reminded you during the course of your campaign - that consistency is enormously important. That people don't want to hear you say one thing in one part of the state and another thing in another part of the state. — Michael Bennet
With the presidential debates right around the corner, John Kerry is going to play Mitt Romney to help the President prepare for the debates. That's kind of a stretch; a rich white guy from Massachusetts playing a rich white guy from Massachusetts. — Jay Leno
Libertarian presidential candidate André Marrou's idea is that "government power is opposed to individual liberty." Must we still debate such sophomoric notions?... Besides, liberty, although very important, is not the only value. — George Will
For all the tough talk about China during the presidential debates, Romney and Obama evaded any mention of China's suspect human rights record, corruption, and rule of law.
By not tackling these controversial topics, the candidates are protecting a strategic partnership with China at the expense of essential human values and beliefs. — Ai Weiwei
If I can get on the presidential ballot in all 50 states and be allowed into the debates, I'd not only run, I'd win. — Jesse Ventura
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