In the restaurant business, you never want to have enemies, whereas it seems that many politicians judge their success by how high their enemies are and whether they can show that they can hold their ground and give a punch for every punch they take.
Politicians have to be committed to people in equal measures.
We're at the crossroads. Down one road is a European centralized bureaucratic socialist welfare system in which politicians and bureaucrats define the future. Down the other road is a proud, solid, reaffirmation of American exceptionalism.
Musicians can run this state better than politicians. We won't get a lot done in the mornings, but we'll work late and be honest.
There are honest journalists like there are honest politicians - they stay bought.
Voters tell politicians what they want through the ballot box. Constantly second-guessing them by speculating whether the parties should gang up on each other misses the point.
I think our politicians could learn a lot from Mandela.
Politicians like to tell people what they want to hear - and what they want to hear is what won't happen.
The commercial broadcasters have tremendous influence in Washington, D.C., for a couple of reasons. First, they're extremely rich and they have lots of money and they have had for a long time, so they can give money to politicians, which gets their attention.
Politicians read the polls that show 85 or 90 percent of the voters profess a belief in God, so they identify themselves with religion, often only to the degree necessary to reach the constituency they are targeting.
When politicians use fear, they are playing into the enemy's hand.
American politicians are responsive almost solely to the interests and desires of their rich constituents and interest groups that primarily represent big business.
Contrary to what the politicians and religious leaders would like us to believe, the world won't be made safer by creating barriers between people.
The problem is that in our country, they make it almost impossible for politicians to win anything. In England it's easier to win a libel suit.
It does no harm just once in a while to acknowledge that the whole country isn't in flames, that there are people in the country besides politicians, entertainers, and criminals.
If you interviewed 1,000 politicians and asked about whether the media's too soft or too hard, about 999 would say too hard.
I was studying American politicians who were searching - allegedly - for American communists because it would put them on the front pages of the papers in their home towns.
Politicians shouldn't spend most of their time in office trying to get reelected.
Even if politicians spew confusing, convoluted jargon, these people are still meant to represent me, and the only way that happens is if I stay informed and vote.
A country, people, and society are in a sorry state when the guardians of its democratic values and the rule of law are the officers of the armed forces who are forced to stand up to the mob and the politicians who incite it and kowtow to it.
Politicians will not put forth programs aimed at the problems of poor blacks while their turnout remains so low.
In Israel, there is a peace camp that can convene 200,000 people in central square of this city, on very short notice, and there is a major movement among academics, politicians, thinkers, and public leaders for peace, even at a painful price. On the Palestinian side, you can find them individually here and there, but there is no public movement.
For politicians to be honest, the public needs to allow them to be honest, and the media, which mediates between the politicians and the public, needs to allow those politicians to be honest. If local democracy is to flourish, it is about the active and informed engagement of every citizen.
There were two mentalities, and both mentalities had to change. There was what I called the Afrikaner mind set of the Unionist politicians, which was holding all power in their own hands, and discriminating, and their objective was to protect their identity.
Politicians are usually the first to forget that if you assume someone else is acting in bad faith, they will do the same to you. Questioning motives poisons the well.
People are fed up with the career politicians who created this mess or failed to prevent it and neither was acceptable, and the only way we could change that was by sending a different type of person to Washington.
You get a little picture that reflects the whole. You can get readers interested in the life of one guy, and he can reflect the whole life around him. And it's a better picture than the politicians give you.
Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.
Democrats want to use government power to make people's lives go better; Republicans respond that people know more than politicians do. We think that both might be able to agree that nudging can maintain free markets, and liberty, while also inclining people in good directions.
A lot of young people don't have a lot of faith in politicians. You can't depend on what they say. They talk in circles. They don't speak the kind of language that has truth to them. I'm speaking differently.
Many people are looking to Washington for answers, but I'm here to tell you, if we wait for the politicians to solve the problems of our day, we will be waiting a long time.
I answer that question by saying: 'Why Meg Whitman' which is: I'm not a career politician. I spent 30 years in business. I can tell you that people in California have had it with career politicians: they are done.
The ability of the 1 percent to buy politicians and regulators is nothing new in American politics - just as inequality has been a permanent part of our economic system. This is true of virtually all political and economic systems.
Elections should be held on April 16th- the day after we pay our income taxes. That is one of the few things that might discourage politicians from being big spenders.
The first requisite of a sound monetary system is that it put the least possible power over the quantity or quality of money in the hands of the politicians.
Anyone can write one book: even politicians do it. Starting a second book reveals an intention to be a professional writer.
