John F. KennedyJFK's election was to have ushered in a modern Camelot. Ironically, these hopes proved all too true. The Bay of Pigs invasion was bungled and the Soviets erected the Berlin Wall. In the end, the king was assassinated and his heir embroiled the nation in two losing wars, Vietnam and poverty, the former fought without the will to win and the latter mired in failed liberal ideologies.
The great hopes and idealisms of the sixties died in these events. As the flower children of the earlier part of the decade turned toward ugly campus riots and takeovers and the Weathermen constructed and threw their bombs, romantic illusions withered. Nixon persevered over Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern and the rest of the old liberal establishment before succumbing to a botched break-in at Democratic Headquarters.
The aberration that was Jimmy Carter sprang from this event, but the American public rectified this error at the earliest opportunity. The wonder boy from Plains was thrown out in favor of the man who many liberals saw as the epitomy of conservative evil, Ronald Reagan. Conservativism had once again become the dominant force in American politics. As one conservative newspaper columnist put it on election eve, 1980, amid the defeats of many of the major liberals of the previous decade -- McGovern, Frank Church, and the rest -- "We are the mainstream."
Joseph P. Kennedy,
attributed to on son JFK's election
I have just received the following telegram from my generous
Daddy. It says, "Dear Jack: Don't buy a single vote more than is
necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide."
John F. Kennedy
There is no city in the United States where I get a warmer
welcome and fewer votes than Columbus, Ohio.
John F. Kennedy
When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to
find that things were just as bad as we'd been saying they were.
John F. Kennedy
I can evade questions without help; what I need are answers.
John F. Kennedy
We were eyeball to eyeball and the other fellow just blinked.
Dean Rusk,
during the Cuban Missile Crisis
I think I made his back feel better.
Marilyn Monroe,
about John F. Kennedy
It's hard to understand all this fuss about John F. Kennedy.
After all, Richard Nixon didn't just concentrate on women. He
tried to do it to everybody.
Richard Aregood,
on stories about JFK's womanizing
Barry Goldwater has definitely decided to be a candidate in '64.
He will campaign in all thirteen states.
George Carlin
...the traces to the East haven been broken, the Republican
party will never again be dominated by the editorial writers for
the New York Herald Tribune. Free at last.
William F. Buckley Jr.,
1964
They [Theodore White and Lou Harris] took turns weeping, and
finally concluded that Rockefeller got the votes of everyone in
California who is a Negro, a Jew, a Mexican, and a college
graduate, while Goldwater got the votes of every millionaire.
Which certainly makes California the land of opportunity.
William F. Buckley Jr.,
on Goldwater's defeat of Rockefeller in
the 1964 California primary
I understand Jacqueline Kennedy has redone the White House in
eighteenth-century style. Why, then, I'd fit in perfectly.
Barry Goldwater
We now have a president who tries to save money by turning off
lights in the White House, even as he heads toward a staggering
addition to the national debt. "L.B.J." should stand for Light
Bulb Johnson.
Barry Goldwater
Of course, I may go into a strange bedroom every now and then
that I don't want you to write about, but otherwise you can write
everything.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
to the press
John ain't been worth a damn since he started wearing $300
suits.
Lyndon Johnson,
on then Governor of Texas John Connally
who opposed much of the "Great Society"
You know when you're milking a cow and you have all that foamy
white milk in the bucket and you're just about through, when all
of a sudden the cow switches her tail through a pile of manure
and slaps it into that foamy white milk. That's Bill Fulbright.
Lyndon Johnson
Nobody in the world can put on a political rally like that great
executive Dick Daley of Chicago. He makes it so much fun being a
Democrat that you don't see how anybody could be anything else.
Lyndon Johnson
Hubert Humphrey talks so fast that listening to him is like
trying to read Playboy magazine with your wife turning the pages.
Barry Goldwater
You know when I first thought I might have a chance? When I
realized that you could go into any bar in the country and insult
Lyndon Johnson and nobody would punch you in the nose.
Eugene McCarthy
The polls show that 10 percent of the public are ready to vote
for me even though they don't know I'm running. We hope that
figure won't drop when they learn I'm in the race.
Eugene McCarthy
As much as I cherish your [McCarthy's] right to a platform as an
independent candidate I am not going to sit here quietly and
listen to you denigrate the two party system. It has served our
country well over the last two hundred years.
John Anderson
Bobby Kennedy is so concerned with poverty because he didn't
have any as a kid.
Ronald Reagan
1968
Mr. Rockefeller is due to entertain munificently at breakfast,
and make his pitch. My advice to one invited guest was: Order
caviar, and then say No.
William F. Buckley Jr.,
1968
Bobby Kennedy and Nelson Rockefeller are having a row,
ostensibly over the plight of New York's mentally retarded, a
loose definition of which would include everyone in New York who
voted for Bobby Kennedy or Nelson Rockefeller.
William F. Buckley Jr.
I'm not entirely upset by the Kennedy assassinations. In many
ways, the two most dangerous men in the country were eliminated.
William Kuntstler
Hunter S. Thompson
McGovern was very much like Henry Wallace, a man of aerial, even
etherial, intentions who was so boring he made your skull feel
like it was imploding.
Tom Wolfe
McGovern couldn't carry the South if Rhett Butler were his
running mate.
Spiro Agnew
Mr. Fulbright hasn't said anything new or interesting or clever
in five years; his intellectual well dried up the day after
Walter Lippmann stopped writing his regular column.
Spiro Agnew
Asking Senator Fulbright's advice on foreign policy is like
asking the Boston Strangler to massage your neck.
Spiro Agnew
It takes quite a bit of nerve for Democrats to complain about
inflation. This reminds me of germs complaining about the
disease.
Spiro Agnew
The President needs me at the White House. It's autumn, you
know, and the leaves need raking.
Spiro Agnew
There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.
Henry Kissinger
We have three things in common: Irish wives, the ability to
speak for 17 minutes without a verb, and the fact that we both
speak with an accent.
Henry Kissinger,
on himself and William F. Buckley Jr.
Dour, taciturn, formidably efficent, [John] Mitchell came across
to liberals and civil libertarians as a hard-lining prosecutor
with all the human graces of the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Time
Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
Henry Kissinger
One thing I don't want around me is a military intellectual. I
don't have to worry about you on that score.
Henry Kissinger,
to Alexander Haig
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a
little longer.
Henry Kissinger
The President is aware of what is going on. That is not to say
that something is going on.
Ron Ziegler,
President Nixon's press secretary, 1971
Gerry Ford
To the great people of the government of Israel. Excuse me -- of
Egypt.
Gerry Ford,
at a dinner given in his honor by
Egyptian president Anwar Sadat
He [Jerry Ford] played too much football with his helmet off.
Lyndon Johnson
Mr. Chairman, I think the record should show that for the first
time since McKinley, we have a Republican president worth
shooting, and I think that's a good sign.
Rep. James Johnson,
after the attempted assassination of
Gerry Ford
I've played everything -- baseball, football, basketball. I can
still swim a mile a day. That's why I can't walk.
Barry Goldwater
I fear Washington and centralized government more than I do
Moscow.
Barry Goldwater
Here is a good bill that's needed in America. If it's
unconstitutional, let the U.S. Supreme Court reverse its opinion
and get in line with New Hampshire and that will make it
constitutional.
Meldrim Thomson,
New Hampshire governor
on a bill to authorize school prayers
No, no! Jimmy Stewart for Governor-- Reagan for his best friend.
Jack L. Warner,
on Reagan's election as California governor
Jimmy Carter,
after the first election debate, 1976
If, after the election, you find a Cy Vance as Secretary of
State and a Zbigniew Brzezinski as head of National Security,
then I would say we failed. And I'd quit.
Hamilton Jordan,
before Jimmy Carter's 1976 election
I am convinced that UFO's exist, because I have seen one.
Jimmy Carter
We've created a Frankenstein monster with a Southern drawl.
Richard Hatcher,
on Jimmy Carter
Jimmy used to drink liquor. Now he's running for president and
he drinks Scotch, and I've never trusted a Scotch-drinker.
Billy Carter
I'm not the Carter who'll never tell a lie.
Billy Carter
Jimmy Carter, who embraced all manner of schemes to make America
a second or third-rate country, came down so squarely in favor of
the double nickel [the 55 mph National Speed Limit]...This is the
same Jimmy Carter whose limosine with him in it, just a little
later in his presidency, was timed at an average of 72 mph for
the 21.5 mile trip from Detroit Metro to the Detroit Plaza Hotel.
He didn't want to be late for a campaign appearance.
Patrick Bedard
President Carter says he doesn't "panic in a crisis." But that's
not the problem. The problem is that he panics without a crisis.
Clayton Fritchey
...Muskie has the ideal temperment for the Carter
administration's manner of dealing with issues of our times
ranging from Iran to inflation.
When the going gets tough he cries.
Jim Finnegan,
Manchester Union Leader editorial
on the appointment of Muskie as
Carter's Secy. of State
If you're in the penaut business you learn to think small.
Eugene McCarthy,
on Jimmy Carter
The reason he [Jimmy Carter] says he never lies is because he
thinks the truth originates with him.
Lester Maddox
He [Jimmy Carter] says his lust is in his heart. I hope it's a
little lower.
Shirley MacLaine
...reelecting President Carter would be the equivalent of giving
the Captain of the Titanic an award as Sailor of the Year.
William Loeb
Most of us had never seen a sober redneck before, and we have
the Reagan Landslide to testify that none of us ever wants to see
one again. It was a horrifying apparition. And ever since Jimmy
Carter, all of us rednecks have had to be very careful to be
drunk rednecks lest we turn into some kind of awful creature with
big buck teeth and a State Department full of human-rights
yahoos.
P.J. O'Rourke
In the current [Carter] administration, who can use the White
House swimming pool and tennis courts is decided at the very
highest level. President Ford did not bother himself with such
minor details. He let me swim in the pool. He only got upset when
I tried to walk across the water.
Henry Kissinger
Hamilton Jordan and Jimmy Carter: Coke and a smile.
Temple University student,
after Hamilton Jordan was accused of
using cocaine
Now that Mr. Carter has made a book of his diary, an adoring
memoir entitled Keeping Faith, the notes read like a collection
of letters sent from scout camp.
Lewis H. Lapham
John Anderson,
Feb. 1980
Anyone dumb enough to get his political information from a comic
strip deserves what he gets at the polls.
Gary Trudeau,
when accused of aiding and abetting
the Anderson campaign in 1980 through
his Doonesbury comic strip
Anderson isn't a candidate, he's costume jewlery.
Jeffrey Hart
Reagan is the least likely of the three candidates to win.
Roger Masters,
Dartmouth Government Professor
before the 1980 presidential election
I think Ronald Reagan can make this country what it once was --
an arctic region covered with ice.
Steve Martin
We're going to get that little bug before that little bug gets
my poll ratings down any further.
Gov. Jerry Brown,
on the medfly
[Jerry Brown] is California's way of celebrating the Year of the
Child.
Jimmy Carter
Teddy [Kennedy] doesn't want to be President; he just doesn't
want anybody else to be President.
John Culver
Vote for Kennedy: Put a blonde in every pond.
1980 bumper sticker
There's still a most unpleasant smell.
I grant you, Teddy's been through hell,
But if I'd missed that bridge, I think
I'd write these verses from the clink.
W.H. von Dreele
In Washington I'm thought of as a conservative, but in Tennessee
I'm thought of as a Bolshevik.
Howard Baker
Connally will always be remembered for his bright Nixon buttons
and his weakness for milk shakes.
William Doty
He [John Connally] likes deep rugs and rich people.
Roy Evans
Hubert Horatio Hornblower...
Jimmy Carter,
(Carter gaffe at the 1980 Democratic
convention when he meant to refer to
Hubert Humphrey)
Reagan has been stressing the orthodox budget balancing and
government-trimming theme -- Scrooge economics from Snoresville
-- with which the Republicans have been routinely losing
elections ever since 1932.
National Review,
during the 1980 presidential campaign
Jesse Helms wants me to move to the right, Lowell Weiker wants
me to move to the left, and Teddy Kennedy wants me to move back
to California.
Ronald Reagan
The [Carter] administration doesn't know the difference between
a diplomat and a doormat.
Ronald Reagan
In a state like Vermont, a vote for Carter is a vote for Reagan.
Prof. Frank Smallwood,
on the 1980 election
He [Reagan] likes to tell jokes and that's why he told the
ethnic joke that got him into some trouble. Perhaps if reporters
didn't overreact to a politician's telling the very same joke
they routinely hear and tell in the city room, we'd get more
humor.
Robert Scheer
Carter has the Midas touch in reverse. Everything Jimmy Carter
touches turns to mush.
William Simon
A recession is when your neighbor is out of work; a depression
is when you're out of work; and recovery? Recovery is when
Carter's out of work.
Ronald Reagan
...during the debates, he [Carter] put my fears to rest. While
discussing the disarmament treaty and nuclear warfare he revealed
that he had discussed the situation with a close advisor who
agreed the arms race was the most critical issue in the campaign.
That advisor, he revealed, was his daughter Amy.
I admire him for having so much faith in the child. But it
surely must be chilly sitting up there in that tree house
discussing international affairs.
Ken Carolan,
Manchester Union Leader
Carter is doing a high-wire act over a cesspool, preaching all
the way. Sinclair Lewis, thou shouldst be living in this hour. We
have a Warren Harding impersonating Elmer Gantry.
National Review,
on Jimmy Carter's campaign tactics
William F. Buckley Jr.
The Democratic party is really just a giant day care center for
squabbling little groups.
Pat Buchanan
Net result [of the Dept. of Agriculture's Payment in Kind -- PIK
-- program]: total farm income, now expected to be around $25
billion, this fiscal year, will exceed total federal subsidies by
only a couple of billion. You could argue that those fellows out
there on the fruited plain are in effect working for the federal
government and that, therefore, the U.S. now has socialized
agriculture under the Reagan Administration. Rich, eh?
Daniel Seligman,
Fortune
Someone told me it was a round thing that gobbles up money. I
thought that was Tip O'Neill.
Ronald Reagan,
on Pac-Man
When it comes to giving tax breaks to the wealthy of this
country, the President has a heart of gold.
Tip O'Neill
The evil is in the White House at the present time.
Tip O'Neill
Simply put, the cost [of the US invasion of Grenada] is loss of
the moral high ground: a reverberating demonstration to the world
that America has no more respect for laws and borders, for the
codes of civilization, than the Soviet Union.
The New York Times
When we do in Grenada what the Soviet Union did in
Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan, we lose moral authority and
credibility.
Jesse Jackson
Ronald Reagan has held the two most demeaning jobs in the
country-- President of the United States and radio broadcaster
for the Chicago Cubs.
George Will
Ronald Reagan is not a typical politician because he doesn't
know how to lie, cheat, and steal. He's always had an agent for
that.
Bob Hope
Nobody's ever said a word about previous Presidencies and
positions commissions took. It wasn't until Ronald Reagan came to
office and if somebody happens to agree with Ronald Reagan then
you are a pawn of Ronald Reagan.
Clarence Pendleton,
Chairman of the Civil Rights Commission
I'm not a black leader. I'm an American leader.
Clarence Pendleton,
when asked why many blacks do not agree
with him even though he is a "black
leader"
Equal means equal. It does not mean that you have separate lists
of blacks and whites for promotion, any more than you have
separate accommodations for blacks and whites for eating. Nothing
will ultimately divide a society more than this kind of
preference and this kind of reverse discrimination.
Morris B. Abram,
Vice-chairman Civil Rights Commission
Should we also have a Sitting Bull national holiday to atone to
the Indians?
Herbert Bateman,
Va. congressman on Martin Luther King's
birthday
Under the Democrats, we never lost the America's Cup.
Bob Neuman,
Communications chairman of the
Democratic National Committee
Koch: But let's leave out rural America with the cows.
Playboy: Cows? God, Ed Koch really is a snob!
Koch: Well, choosing between living with people and living with
animals...
Ed Koch,
in Playboy interview
Anybody who suggests that I run for governor is no friend of
mine. It's a terrible position, and besides, it requires living
in Albany, which is small-town life at its worst.
Ed Koch,
shortly before running for governor
of New York (and losing)
We don't need more politicians insisting we have deficits
because you're not taxed enough. Those deficits ballooned from an
economy that didn't grow enough and from 50 years of government
spending too much.
Ronald Reagan
Revenues should be increased not by increasing the tax rates on
the individual but by building a bigger economy for everybody.
Ronald Reagan
I like a President who tells jokes instead of appointing them.
Bob Hope,
at Princeton, 1984
The American people aren't overtaxed. The government in
Washington is overfed. The main difference between ourselves and
the other side is: we see an America where every day is the
Fourth of July. They see an America where every day is April 15.
Ronald Reagan
The three of you instructing the Republican Party on how to
broaden its appeal is a little like Ayatollah Khomeini writing a
sequel to How to Win Friends and Influence People.
Terry Dolan,
to Republican Senators Lowell Weiker,
John Chafee, and Robert Stafford
Reagan is not a racist. He just hates people.
Harry Edwards,
UC Berkely sociology professor
Now Reagan has come. Now the plague has come to these shores.
Now the plague has come as cynics foretold. The vision of an
unspoiled paradise is gone to ashes. A child's pure dream of
America is annihilated.
Michael Swift
Duarte is a moderate when it comes to civilian control of the
military and curbing death squads. On economics, the man is
almost a Marxist.
Malcolm S. Forbes Jr.
Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne had to call off her write-in campaign
for re-election when it became clear that both her supporters
were illiterate.
National Review
The fact that he didn't replace the buffalo with a bulldozer
indicated at long last that James Watt may be moderating his
views toward wildlife.
Jay Hair,
on James Watt's changes to the US
Department of Interior's seal to make the
buffalo look right instead of left
It was clear from the beginning that this guy was going to have
trouble in the nation's capital. He didn't smoke; he didn't
drink, not even coffee; and, more important, he didn't
compromise.
Eleanor Randolph,
of James Watt
Within the Administration, whether Paul Volcker's renamed
Federal Reserve chairman this summer or not is no longer the
question. Who will replace him is what's being discussed. And is
- almost - decided.
Malcolm S. Forbes,
before Volker's reappointment
March 28, 1983
If somebody had made that [deal] to me when I was a businessman,
I would have said he proposed to give me the sleeves from his
vest.
George Shultz,
commenting on one of Andropov's
disarmament proposals
Now I ask you: Do the hypocritical, pandering, gutless wonders
in Congress intend to do anything after taking more testimony,
from me or anybody else?
William Simon,
former Secretary of the Treasury,
in response to an invitation to testify
on "the problem of the deficit"
Mr. President, we've taken off our "Kick Me" sign.
Jeane Kirkpatrick,
to Reagan when asked about the
difference between this administration
and the last
Do you realize that at the moment we have Barry Goldwater
fighting the Moral Majority, with The New York Times rooting for
Goldwater? Times have changed.
William Rusher
If our planes were shot down, yes, they's wake me right away. If
the other fellows' were shot down, why wake me up?
Ronald Reagan,
after US fighters downed two Libyan jets
Reagan's half a disciple of Benjamin Franklin. He believes in
early to bed.
Lyn Nofziger,
Reagan presidential assistant
Welfare recipients are a faceless mass waiting for a handout.
Ronald Reagan
You know, politics has been called the second oldest profession.
Sometimes there is a similarity to the first.
Ronald Reagan
It seems to me there are good deficits and bad deficits. Now, we
have a deficit that comes from the militarization of our society
and our policy and our approach to the global arena.
Victor Navasky,
editor of The Nation
Put the president of the Sierra Club in a sealed garage with a
tree. Put Ronald Reagan in a sealed garage with a running
automobile. Wait to see which one of them yells to get out first.
San Jose Mercury News,
editorial in reference to Reagan's statement
about trees causing pollution
...it is the Far Right today that establishes the terms of the
nuclear debate. And in this context, in a room ringing with
hysterical pleas on behalf of Reagan's eerie laser-beam
technology, the MacBundys of the world seem eminently,
refreshingly sane.
David Talbot, Mother Jones
Well, it is alarming to have a president [Reagan] who doesn't
know what he is doing.
McGeorge Bundy
Poverty is the problem, not Communism.
Gary Hart,
on Central America
They [Nicaragua] haven't had elections because they are in a
state of seige by the United States. They would have had
elections if the U.S. had left them alone. But the U.S. has
mounted a full scale war against them. So how can you ask them to
behave normally?
Allen Ginsberg
Authorities have finally declared Washington a disaster area.
No, no, no, the other one.
National Review,
after the eruption of Mt. St. Helens
It's just like old times: a German socialist government
cooperating with Moscow to crush Poland. But the old crowd had
better uniforms.
National Review,
on the German government's refusal to
oppose the destruction of Solidarity
Hugh Sidey,
Time
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.
Ronald Reagan
The leaders of the Democratic Party aren't soft on Communism.
They're soft on Democracy.
Jack Kemp
Third parties in America gravitate not only to the extremes, but
to irrelevance. (John Anderson's upcoming presidential campaign
will undoubtedly confirm both tendencies.)
Charles Krauthammer,
Time essay
[Anderson decided not to run in 1984]
There are two barometers: national poll ratings and money in the
bank. Clearly, it's Mondale and Glenn. It's a two man race.
Boston Globe
correspondent, before the Iowa caucuses, 1984
The meeting [in San Antonio of the National Women's Political
Caucus] featured a cattle show at which a herd of Democratic
candidates-- Glenn, Cranston, Mondale, Hart, and Hollings--
pantingly pantomined their fidelity to feminism, stopping just
short of a pledge to use nuclear weapons against any states that
omit to ratify the Equal Right Amendment.
Daniel Seligman
Would anyone else like to say anything nice about women?
Ted Koppel,
Democratic debate at Dartmouth
My good friend Walter Mondale is a good lapdog. He'll give them
[special interest groups] everything they want. He'll lick every
hand.
Fritz Hollings
[Mondale] was not born; he was appointed.
Fritz Hollings
Reaganism is not only at odds with the Judeo-Christian heritage,
it will not work.
George McGovern,
Address to the Democratic Convention
If Reagan wins, I'd sell the farm and buy a bomb shelter.
George McGovern,
to farmers in Ames, Iowa
Heading for retirement, George McGovern says he looks forward to
having "time to think." Better late than never.
National Review
I've paid my dues. I've earned your votes. Send me.
Jesse Jackson,
announcing his candidacy
Jesse Jackson's `Rainbow Coalition' is showing all the colors of
a rainbow at midnight.
National Review
We picked their cotton. We cooked their food. We nursed their
babies. Now we can run their cities. We can run their states. We
will run the country.
Jesse Jackson
I'm a Third World person. I grew up in an occupied zone
[Greenville, South Carolina] and had to negotiate with the
superpower, really the colonial power.
Jesse Jackson
Jesse Jackson has to get back to "I am somebody" instead of "I
am some color."
Ernest Hollings
If Lt. Goodman [American airman whose release from Syria Jesse
Jackson arranged] had not been black Jackson would have cared
about as much what happened to him as he cared what happened to
an empty can of 7-up.
Richard Grenier
Workers, black and white, need some kind of international
affirmative action to protect them from unfair competition with
unorganized or slave labor abroad and unfair competition with
robots at home.
Jesse Jackson
The most critical problem we face, not only in the barrios, but
in Nicaragua and Central America, is that of the threat of an
invasion by the United States.
Jackie Jackson,
wife of Jesse Jackson
When it came to the division of power, we did not get from the
Jews the slice of cake we deserved... the Jews do not share with
us control of wealth, broadcasting stations and other centers of
power.
Jesse Jackson
Mr. Jackson offered a vision of democracy as a spoils system, of
rhetoric as arousal without persuasion, of politics as an
exercise in the cultivation of false hopes, and of policy as
sterile, marginal posturing beyond the fringes of the national
consensus.
The New Republic
With the help of Minister Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, Mr.
Jackson has turned his rainbow into a violent black thunderhead.
The New Republic
Unfortunate. Unfortunate. Sometimes people struggling for
freedom lose their way.
Jesse Jackson,
of the Khymer Rouge's genocide in
Cambodia
The Jews don't like Farrakhan, so they call him Hitler. Well,
that's a good name. Hitler was a very great man.
Louis Farrakhan,
leader of the Nation of Islam and
supporter of Jesse Jackson in a Chicago
radio address during March
If I were a white candidate, I'd have won the Democratic
nomination.
Jesse Jackson
The boring white guys have finally got to Jesse. He's as boring
as they are.
Washington Post reporter, at Dartmouth College
Democratic debate
Fear and hatred are the legacy of Ronald Reagan. America's
vision of peace and freedom [is being] blasted by the guns of the
U.S. Navy in Lebanon, the guns of U.S. paratroopers in Grenada,
and the guns of U.S. helicopters in Honduras and El Salvador.
Alan Cranston
It could well be the end of justice in America. Do not let Mr.
Reagan get his hands on that court.
Walter Mondale,
on letting Ronald Reagan pick
Supreme Court justices
Glenn must think he's still in space. He's orbiting the issues
faster than he orbited earth.
Fritz Hollings
Have you had a phone call from the Mondale campaign? If you
haven't, just wait.
Glenn commercial,
on Mondale's extensive phone-calling
campaign
I've seen the film. And I'll tell you this, I'm glad Chuck
Yeager isn't running for President.
Walter Mondale,
When asked what influence he thought
the film The Right Stuff would have
on the Glenn campaign
Gary Hart is going to be all over the political spectrum fuzzing
it up just like Jack Kennedy.
Robert Novak,
predicting Hart's campaign strategy
after New Hampshire
Over the next few months we're going to be distracted from our
primary task which is attacking Ronald Reagan.
Mark Siegel,
lamenting Hart's success
There may not be a 1988 if we give this man [Reagan] one more
term in office.
Gary Hart
Without doubt, Hart's views on questions of nuclear disarmament
and improving Soviet-American relations arouse interest and
sympathy.
Sovetskaya Rossiya,
Soviet Communist Party newspaper
March 28, 1984
Are you attracted by his new ideas or his new poll ratings?
Pat Buchanan,
to Ernest Hollings
on his support for Gary Hart
Hart is still like that little tub of vaguely milklike gunk that
comes with airline coffee. It is labeled a "nondairy" product.
Fine: we know what is is non, but what is it?
George Will
On March 8 a poll showed Hart 9 points ahead of Reagan. So
perhaps 60 million Americans, 55 million of whom had not heard of
Hart a month ago, have suddenly decided thay want him to be
leader of the free world. The public mind is not just soft wax,
it's runny.
George Will
We won that state pretty decisively.
Gary Hart,
after winning the Arizona primary
on 4/15/84 at which he gained 17
delegates to Mondale's 15
I had a new idea on the way to this meeting this morning, but
that doesn't mean we should put it in the platform.
Michael D. Barnes,
Representative (Democrat - MD)
on Gary Hart wanting some of his "new
ideas" written into the party platform
We should have at least one new idea in the job training part of
the platform. Otherwise, why don't we just take the 1964
platform and adopt it?
Timothy Wirth,
Representative (Democrat - CO),
Hart supporter
Fritz Mondale is not some synthetic Masked Marvel or Mystery
Man. He is not made of silicon and micro-chip flakes. He is made
of flesh and blood and brains.
Lane Kirkland,
comparing Mondale and Hart
A bunch of nitwits.
Manchester Union Leader,
summary of the Democratic field
Tomorrow, I'm going to a soup kitchen in Mobile. I think that
will symbolize the insensitivity of this administration to human
needs.
Walter Mondale
I can't wait until I see the guys at a legitimate soup kitchen
when the press shows up and Mondale arrives in a limosine.
Reporter
If you're tempted to believe with Governor Cuomo that government
is just like Mom and Pop rather than Big Brother, just ask
yourself one question: When was the last time all the IRS wanted
from you was a hug and a kiss.
Sen. Paul Laxalt
[If the Democratic nominee turns out to be] Walter Mondale, I
hope he picks Representative Geraldine Ferraro as his running
mate. It would be a desperate move, but that's what it'll take
to get rid of Reagan. Ms. Ferraro is no more unqualified than a
lot of Vice Presidential candidates have been, and anyhow
Mondale's in good health.
Hendrik Hertzberg,
The New Republic 11 June 1984
It looks like Edith and Archie have turned out to be Pamela and
Averell Harriman.
George Bush,
after Geraldine Ferraro disclosed that
she and her husband were worth $3.8
million
Why should Gerry Ferraro have to be qualified? Jimmy Carter
wasn't.
i> National Review
The Democrats in San Francisco talked a lot about the future.
Their theme seemed to be that America's future belongs to the
wishers, the wasters, the whiners and the weak.
Gerry Ford,
Speech to the Republican Convention
When the San Francisco Democrats treat foreign affairs as an
afterthought, as they did, they behaved less like a dove or a
hawk than like an ostrich -- convinced it could shut out the
world by hiding its head in the sand.
Jeane Kirkpatrick,
Speech to the Republican Convention
It was not malaise we suffered from; it was Jimmy Carter -- and
Walter Mondale.
Jeane Kirkpatrick,
Speech to the Republican Convention
Meanwhile, there is the other gender gap, among the nation's
largest and most victimized minority, white males, who, according
to a New York Times/CBS poll, prefer Mr. Reagan to Mr. Mondale by
the astonishing margin of almost three to one.
National Review,
October 5, 1984
Right now, if there's a gender gap problem, it's not Ronald
Reagan with women; it's with Walter Mondale with men.
Patrick Caddell,
Democratic pollster
"Soft on Communism" used to be a McCarthyite charge. Now it's
becoming a Democratic campaign pledge.
National Review
The Democratic party today is not so much a political party as a
milling herd, and the herd is easily stampeded.
R.Emmett Tyrrell Jr.
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,
Time
The good news is that the president gets another chance. The bad
news is that he'll be two weeks older.
Johnny Carson,
after the first 1984 presidential debate
[Deficits are] a yawner. We, as Republicans, have talked about
deficits and balanced budgets since the days of Roosevelt, and
the people simply haven't listened, because they can't relate to
those huge numbers.
Paul Laxalt,
chairman of Reagan's campaign
committee & Nevada senator
[The Democrats] will say that the Reagan administrtion has given
benefits to the rich at the expense of the poor -- a term that
they define broadly to include middle-income people, women,
minorities, the aged, the young, farmers, steelworkers, and
others.
Herbert Stein,
Fortune
For almost 50 years polls have shown that a large majority of
the public believe that the budget should be balanced, and for
all that time they have elected office seekers who would not
balance it. The public cares about deficits, but doesn't care
much.
Herbert Stein,
Fortune
Carter couldn't elect a dog-catcher.
Ed Koch,
when asked how important he thought
Jimmy Carter's support is
There was a time when "sound as a dollar" was a description, not
a joke.
Ronald Reagan
You can never underestimate the ability of the Democrats to wet
their finger and hold it in the wind.
Ronald Reagan
