Re Election Quotes

“Immediately after his re-election [Cameron] announced: "For too long we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens so long as you obey the law we will leave you alone." A statement so far to the right that it conceded the political centre ground to Judge Dredd.”

— Frankie Boyle

“Because of racism, he can't govern effectively' is not a great argument for re-election.”

— James Taranto

“In January 2013, I told the people in the Justice Department after the re-election that I wanted to focus on reforming the federal criminal justice system. I made an announcement in August of that year in San Francisco, when we rolled out the Smart on Crime initiative.”

— Eric Holder

“The reason inflation was brought down to manageable levels, by the time of Ronald Reagan's re-election, was directly attributable to Jimmy Carter's very courageous act, hiring a Federal Reserve chair, with the charge to induce a recession. That recession was probably the reason he didn't win a second term.”

— Rick Perlstein

“I've been around long enough to not take seriously statements like I am about to be crushed. I'm about how do we seek re-election of the Australian government, how we prevent Tony Abbott from being elected. The bottom line is that it should be all hands to the pump rather than saying other, frankly negative and internally divisive things.”

— Kevin Rudd

“I'm up for re-election in 2014, and yes I do plan to run for re-election.”

— Kay Hagan

“When you're in elected office, you always have to operate under the assumption that you're in a dog fight for re-election. It's when you don't prepare for a tough battle, when you're caught flat-footed, that you're vulnerable.”

— Kevin Yoder

“Basically, the start of my thinking process is: 'OK, if you didn't have to worry about re-election, what would you be doing?' That's kind of how I'm starting to think.”

— Ray Nagin

“In 1996, President Clinton put together a detailed agenda called 'A Bridge to the 21st Century' that told voters why, in his words, 'rehire him' for another four years. That's the right way for an incumbent president to run for re-election.”

— Al From

“I can remember the morning after President Nixon won re-election in 1972. His chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, called a Cabinet meeting and told the members: 'You are all a bunch of burned-out volcanoes;' and asked for their resignations.”

— Helen Thomas

“In my wildest dreams, I never would have thought we'd come to the point where were talking about the re-election of a black president.”

— Harvey Gantt

“Insisting that we must tax and take and demonize those who have already achieved the American Dream. That may turn out to be a good re-election strategy for President Obama, but is a demoralizing message for America.”

— Chris Christie

“Lyndon Johnson. The junior congressman saw two things that no one else saw. The first was a possible connection between two groups that had previously had no link: conservative Texas oilmen and contractors-most notably his financial backer, Herman Brown, of Brown & Root-who needed federal contracts and tax breaks and were willing to spend money, a lot of money, to get them; and the scores of northern, liberal congressmen, running for re-election, who needed money for their campaigns. The second was that he could become that link.”

— Robert A. Caro

“Because you basically won a close re-election, your first task is to unify the city. And it's done not with words but with actions, by reaching out, to the supporters of your opponent as well as to reassure your own supporters.”

— Marc Morial

“By every measure, John Kennedy's sex life was compulsive and reckless. At one level, it had clear public consequences. Knowledge of Kennedy's behavior gave FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover absolute job security, as well as the potential power to derail Kennedy's re-election had he survived assassination.”

— Jeff Greenfield

“After a great deal of thought and discussions with my family, I have decided not to seek re-election in 2014. Politics shouldn't be a career, and I never intended to make it one.”

— Jon Runyan

“Politicians in Washington work in a small, sheltered world where they lurch from crisis to crisis that they create, nurture and use as ideological triggers in their selfish pursuit of re-election.”

— Mike Barnicle

“It's true that all these gods seem to do awfully little work - much like our politicians - and yet keep winning re-election to their golden thrones in heaven year after year.”

— Aravind Adiga

“Despite the fact that he has run the most incompetent administration in history, President Obama remains a solid bet for re-election in 2012. Obama's frontrunner status springs from two crucial facts: first, by overexposing himself in the public eye, he has made himself larger than life; second, the Republican field is pathetically weak.”

— Ben Shapiro

“In the aftermath of President Obama's re-election, members of both the administration and the media trumpeted that Obama had received his long-sought mandate. Obamacare, Americans were told, was the law of the land. It could not be changed; it could not be stopped.”

— Ben Shapiro

“During the campaign for re-election, Barack Obama at least made vague references to a willingness to accept $3 trillion of reduced spending in exchange for a $1 trillion dollar tax increase.”

— Bob Beauprez

“The argument that John F. Kennedy was a closet peacenik, ready to give up on what the Vietnamese call the 'American War' upon re-election, received its most farcical treatment in Oliver Stone's 'JFK.'”

— Rick Perlstein

“One wonders whether the Obama re-election campaign may be on the right track as it seeks to apply the you-break-it-you-own-it rule to Bush and the American economy. Hardly a day goes by without President Obama or his surrogates arguing that it takes longer than four years to recover from an economic crisis so long in the making.”

— Jon Meacham

“I am running for re-election no matter who runs.”

— Charles B. Rangel

“This November, with the re-election of President Barack Obama, this generation of Americans will ever expand upon the hope, the truth and the promise of America.”

— Cory Booker

“Joe Scarborough was one of 74 Republicans elected to the Congress in 1994 in response to the missteps of the early Clinton era. He was the first Republican elected to Congress from his northern Florida district since the 1870s and handily won re-election three times.”

— Christopher Buckley

“The election, and even the re-election, of a black man as president, in a country that is 87 percent non-black - a first in human history - has had no impact on what are called 'racial tensions.'”

— Dennis Prager

“I've noticed that in the U.S., when the president hits the three-year mark in office, he goes into re-election campaigning.”

— Lee Myung-bak

“There's a lot of work to be done if you're going to run for president or if you're going to run for re-election in a state as big as Florida.”

— Marco Rubio

“I am honored to be here as co-chair of President Obama's re-election campaign.”

— Eva Longoria

“The election of the nationalist Chen Shui-bian as president in 2000 and his re-election in 2004 was a nadir in the relationship between Taiwan and the mainland.”

— Martin Jacques

“The Houston Contractors Association is proud to endorse Council Member Oliver Pennington for re-election to Houston City Council. Council Member Pennington understands that infrastructure investment is crucial to protect the long-term economic vitality of our community. We strongly support his efforts on behalf of small businesses and the construction industry while demonstrating his commitment to sound management of the city's budget.”

— Jeffrey Nielsen

“Congress is best viewed from a distance-the farther the better-because up close, it is truly ugly. I saw most of Congress as uncivil, incompetent at fulfilling their basic constitutional responsibilities (such as timely appropriations), micromanagerial, parochial, hypocritical, egotistical, thin-skinned and prone to put self (and re-election) before country.”

— Robert M. Gates

“Bill Clinton gives the appearance of taking stands-for some sort of tax cut, some sort of welfare reform, some sort of balanced budget-but these are ploys, mirages: they exist only to undermine positions taken by the Republicans. He doesn't fight for anything substantive-except of course, re-election ... He has fallen into the dangerous habit of lip synching the presidency: he gives the appearance of leadership, but not the substance.”

— Joe Klein

“Whether or not the President is sleeping well won't be a factor in his re-election. That will depend on what he does while he is awake.”

— Bob Schieffer

“The Prime Minister seems now to be basing his re-election campaign on this plot line. He is saying to the Australian people, look out, the baddies behind you - hiss, boo and whatever you do, don't vote Labor. This political parody of pantomime is looking and sounding desperate.”

— Julia Gillard

“Obama microtargeted his way to re-election by pitting Americans against each other in many instances. In order to confront the challenges the nation faces, he's really going to have to put his 2008 rhetoric about bringing people together into practice. Otherwise his legacy will only be that of a great campaigner whose promises fell short of accomplishment.”

— Kevin Madden

“In a year of re-election he was desperate to impress.”

— Rod Stewart

“My task, as a member of this parliament and a 30-year member of the Australian Labor Party, as its former leader, as its former foreign minister and its former prime minister, is to now throw my every effort in securing Julia Gillard's re-election as Labor prime minister at the next election.”

— Kevin Rudd

“Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid says he will not seek re-election. Harry said he wants to spend more time with his family. As I always say, check with your family.”

— David Letterman

“The Bush campaign for re-election has officially begun. They're actually running television commercials. Have you seen any of the television commercials? In one of the commercials, you see George Bush for thirty seconds. In another commercial, you get to see George Bush for sixty seconds - kind of like his stint in the National Guard.”

— David Letterman

“While I am deeply sensible to the high compliment of a re-election; and duly grateful, as I trust, to Almighty God for having directed my countrymen to a right conclusion, as I think, for their own good, it adds nothing to my satisfaction that any other man may be disappointed or pained by the result.”

— Abraham Lincoln

“The only true allegiance a politician has is to his own re-election.”

— Michelle Malkin

“President Obama's re-election campaign said that this year they'll knock on 150 percent more doors than they did in 2008. Well, of course they will. They have to. There's so many foreclosures it's tough to tell where people live.”

— Jay Leno

“There once was a man name Barack,
Whose re-election came as a shock.
He raised the taxes I pay,
And then turned marriage gay.
And now he's coming after your glock.”

— Stephen Colbert

“The reason so many problems do not get solved in Washington is that solving those problems is not the No. 1 priority: Re-election is.”

— Thomas Sowell

“For decades the G.O.P. has won elections by appealing to social and racial divisions, only to turn after each victory to deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy — a process that reached its epitome when George W. Bush won re-election by posing as America's defender against gay married terrorists, then announced that he had a mandate to privatize Social Security.”

— Paul Krugman

“Bush advisers have long been worried that a lagging economy could hamper the president's re-election chances. They hope that the Cabinet shake-up will provide a needed jolt. If that doesn't work, North Korea has to go.”

— Jon Stewart

“I am convinced that international terrorism gave itself the goal of not allowing the re-election of Bush. The statement by bin Laden in the final stages of the pre-election campaign is the best confirmation of this.”

— Vladimir Putin

“California's 74-year-old Senator Barbara Boxer announced she will not run for re-election in 2016. When I saw the headline '74-Year-Old Boxer,' I assumed they were making another 'Rocky' movie.”

— Conan O'Brien