Quotes about election
page 6

“Anyone and everyone can join politics today. The day's newspapers were on the table in front of him. All he needs to do is to show enough money towards his electability, enough vote-bank numbers on his side, and he gets a ticket.”

R. Venkataraman (1910–2009) seventh Vice-President of India and the 8th President of India

Gopalkrishna Gandhi in: The value of decency http://hindu.com/2010/12/04/stories/2010120462451500.htm, The Hindu, 4 December 2010

Money

“We have been conned again. The Israeli elections, we are told, mean that the dream of "Greater Israel" has finally been abandoned…But it is a lie.”

Robert Fisk (1946) English writer and journalist

Another Brick in the Wall http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story-040406231246.htm, April 4, 2006 2006

Lie, Dreams

“Disappearances, assassinations, and extended prison sentences for opposition political figures and journalists, and the banning of opposition parties, have been regular features of a 20-year-long Kagame-RPF “regime consolidation” and the ascendancy of Kagame Power. Were U. S. targets such as Russia’s President Vladimir Putin or Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez or any number of successive Iranian presidents ever to have been awarded 93 or 95 percent of the reported votes in an election, the establishment U. S. media would have devoted huge, angry, and sarcastic denunciations to such a display of electoral corruption, and rejected and delegitimized the outcomes. But Kagame’s flagrantly corrupt victories and brutal means his RPF has employed to guarantee them have hardly caused a dent in his recognition as a respectable and legitimate leader.”

Edward S. Herman (1925–2017) American journalist

Herman and Peterson (2014), Enduring Lies: The Rwandan Genocide and the Propaganda System, 20 Years Later, p. 13.
2010s

Success, Victory

“These differences of opinion were more in reference to policy than principle, and as Mr. Jefferson said in his inaugural, in 1801, after the heated contest preceding his election, that there might be differences of opinion without differences on principle, and that all, to some extent, had been Federalists and all Republicans; so it may now be said of us, that whatever differences of opinion as to the best policy in having a co-operation with our border sister slave States, if the worst came to the worst, that as we were all co-operationists, we are now all for independence, whether they come or not.”

Alexander H. Stephens (1812–1883) Vice President of the Confederate States (in office from 1861 to 1865)

The Cornerstone Speech (1861)

Sister

“You can be completely opposed to an ideological position, and I'm certainly not close to Aznar's ideas, however he was elected by the Spanish people and I demand that respect.”

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (1960) Former Prime Minister of Spain

To Hugo Chavez, who had accused Aznar of being a racist and a fascist in the 17th Iberoamerican Summit. As President, 2007 Source: El Mundo: El Rey se enfrenta a gritos con Chávez en defensa de Aznar: ¿Por qué no te callas? http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2007/11/10/internacional/1194711476.html (Spanish)

People, Idea

“The agitator must stand outside of organizations, with no bread to earn, no candidate to elect, no party to save, no object but truth — to tear a question open and riddle it with light.”

Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator and lawyer

1880s, The Scholar in a Republic (1881)

Truth, Question, Tear, Light

“20 Proposition. Gods Temple, although in heaven, is also taken for his holy Church among his heavenly Elect upon the earth, and metonymicè for the whole contents thereof.”

John Napier (1550–1617) Scottish mathematician

A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John (1593), The First and Introductory Treatise

God

“The Republican Party is strong enough to dare to do right and cannot afford to shirk a duty. The colored men North and South were loyal to the Government in the days of its greatest peril. There was not a rebel or a traitor to be found among them. They ask the privilege of citizenship now that slavery has been forever banished from our country. Why should the great freedom-loving State of Iowa longer deny them this right? No one reason can be given that has not been used to bolster up slavery for the last hundred years. The war that has just closed has swept that relic of barbarism from our land; let the Republican Party have the courage to do justice…I have no fear of the result in a contest of this kind. We shall carry the election and have the satisfaction of wiping out the last vestige of the black code that has long been a disgrace to our State.”

Hiram Price (1814–1901) American politician

As quoted in History of Iowa from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century https://books.google.com/books?id=gTdAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=%22With+proper+safeguards+to+the+purity+of+the+ballot+box,+the+elective+franchise+should+be+based+upon+loyalty+to+the+Constitution+and+the+Union+recognizing+and+affirming+the+equality+of+all+men+before+the+law%22&source=bl&ots=z_M1ul7IWl&sig=8CNmDX4D9Q3cLBaZ1hxR_MgATZE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjI7_W07L7UAhVMcT4KHT1uDXAQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=%22With%20proper%20safeguards%20to%20the%20purity%20of%20the%20ballot%20box%2C%20the%20elective%20franchise%20should%20be%20based%20upon%20loyalty%20to%20the%20Constitution%20and%20the%20Union%20recognizing%20and%20affirming%20the%20equality%20of%20all%20men%20before%20the%20law%22&f=false (1903), by Benjamin F. Gue, Volume III, Chapter 1

Love, Men, War, Fear

“We all know that election reform takes time. That’s because those who have benefited from the system are the ones who fight hardest to preserve it. So if we’re going to succeed, we need an independent coalition of citizens who believe in reform, who believe that our election laws should treat every voter equally, who believe that low levels of competition and participation are not healthy for democracy. The Independence Party is helping to build that coalition and I am happy to join you in doing so.”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

http://www.independentvoting.org/Bloomberg.html
Politics

Happiness, Law, Democracy, Time

“Power is action, and the elective principle is discussion. There is no policy, no statesmanship possible where discussion is permanent.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

Le pouvoir est une action, et le principe électif est la discussion.Il n'y a pas de politique possible avec la discussion en permanence.
About Catherine de' Medici (1842), Introduction

“Many modifications in private and public life took place. Privacy ceasing to exist, all new houses were glass-built, curtains abolished, walls pulled down. Police went, the entire legal structure vanished overnight — a man does not litigate against himself. A parody of Parliament remained, to deal with foreign affairs, but party politics, elections, leaders in newspapers (even newspapers themselves) were scrapped.”

Brian W. Aldiss (1925–2017) British science fiction author

Let's Be Frank (1957)

Life, Housing

“When closed societies collapse but fail to make the transition to openness the reason need not be that they languish in anarchy or suffer a return to dictatorship. It may be that they adopt an illiberal form of democracy. Along with the liberal democratic tradition that goes back to Locke and the English civil war there is a tradition, originating in the French Revolution and formulated theoretically by Rousseau, which understands democracy as the expression of popular will. The elective theocracy that is emerging in much of post-Saddam Iraq is a democratic polity in the latter sense, as is the current regime in Iran; so is the Hamas government in Palestine… To be sure, these regimes often lack freedom of information and expression and legal limitations on government power, which are essential features of democracy in the liberal tradition. In these respects they are closed societies, but they are not dictatorships. It is often forgotten that democracy, defined chiefly by elections and the exercise of power in the name of the majority, can be as repressive of individual freedom and minority rights as dictatorship - sometimes more so.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

'George Soros and the Open Society' (p.116-7)
Gray's Anatomy: Selected Writings (2009)

War, Exercises, Democracy, Understanding

“In 1980, Reagan had to do just one thing: pass the threshold test for acceptability. He won that election because he did, especially in the debate with Jimmy Carter in which Reagan showed himself to be genial, self-assured and, above all, nonthreatening. You may not like all his policies, but you could safely entrust the nation to him. Trump badly needs to pass that threshold. If character is destiny, he won’t.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

2010s, 2016, Donald Trump and the fitness threshold (2016)

“Europe is to be turned into a banana republic by taxing labor – not finance, insurance or real estate (FIRE). Governments are to impose heavier employment and sales taxes while cutting back pensions and other public spending. … The financial privatization and credit-creation monopoly that governments have relinquished to banks is now to really pay off – at the price of breaking up Europe. … The unelected members of the European Central Bank have taken over planning power from elected governments. Beholden to its financial constituency, the ECB has convinced the EU commission to back the new oligarchic power grab. … In sum, the Neoliberal Revolution seeks to achieve in Europe what the United States has achieved since real wages stopped rising in 1979: doubling the share of wealth enjoyed by the richest 1%. This involves reducing the middle class to poverty, breaking union power, and destroying the internal market as a precondition.”

Michael Hudson (economist) (1939) American economist

Who Wins? http://michael-hudson.com/2010/10/who-wins/ (October 3, 2010) Michael-Hudson.com, 1998-

Wealth

“Other Milli (i. e. of the Muslim nation) resolutions include a call for separate electorates (MPs elected by joint electorates are denounced as “lackeys of the Hindus”) and the creation of autonomous states in Muslim-majority areas.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Decolonizing the Hindu Mind (2001)

“The right-of-reply issue has nothing to do with fearing media nor with the 2010 elections. Rather, it has everything to do with imposing unnecessary restraints on media.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Statement: I Stand by the Side of Freedom

Fear

“If I ever became president, I'd push with every ounce of power I had for Congress to pass something else into law: Every elected federal official must predesignate an individual in their immediate family who has to begin military service—the moment that official casts an affirmative vote toward going to war. This could be a grandchild, a niece or nephew, but someone. It doesn't mean they necessarily go to the war zone. What it does mean is that they and their family experience some personal discomfort because of this decision. Going to war should bring difficulty, especially to those who are the orchestrators or the authorizers. Right now, it's far too easy for them to go on TV with their bleeding hearts and give standing ovations to our service personnel. War should not be laissez-faire. If you're not willing to send someone from your family, how can you be so willing to send someone else's?”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

Source: Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (2008), Ch. 14 (p. 270)

War, Family, Law, Decision

“We don’t want a dystopian future in which corporations and not democratically elected governments call the shots. We don’t want an international order akin to post-democracy or post-law.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

UN calls for suspension of TTIP talks over fears of human rights abuses http://www.theguardian.com/global/2015/may/04/ttip-united-nations-human-right-secret-courts-multinationals. 2015

Law, Democracy, Future

“I hope you have read the election programme of the Labour Party…this is not socialism. It is Bolshevism run mad.”

Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden (1864–1937) British politician

BBC radio broadcast (17 October 1931)

Hope, Reading, Madness

“A large group of Iranians have doubts about last month's (June) disputed presidential election … something should be done about the situation., on the 2009 presidential election.”

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1934–2017) Iranian politician, Shi'a cleric and Writer

Remarks at a Friday prayer http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-08/10/content_11859213.htm (August 10, 2009) 2009

“This, by the way, was a demand for the greatest increase of federal power prior to the New Deal, maybe even since the New Deal. The greatest demand for an increase in federal power was made by the Southern states in 1860. And the majority in the convention refused to adopt this, and they refused to adopt it because nobody could be elected dogcatcher in a free state who supported a federal police power over slavery in the territories.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), The Right of Secession Is Not the Right of Revolution

Way, Support

“If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y'all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly, down in Texas. I mean, printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous—or treasonous in my opinion.”

Rick Perry (1950) 14th and current United States Secretary of Energy

2011-08-16
Perry: We'd Lynch Ben Bernanke In Texas
Andrew
Sullivan
The Dish
The Daily Beast
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/08/perry-wed-lynch-ben-bernanke-in-texas.html
2011

Money, Guy, History, Time

“Communal mobilisation in the long run will not succeed in India because Indian society cannot be mobilized communally. Even the last elections have shown that communities, religious communities, castes did not vote solidly for one party.”

K. R. Narayanan (1920–2005) 9th Vice President and the 10th President of India

Shri K. R. Narayanan President of India in Conversation with N. Ram on Doordarshan and All India Radio

Communication

“The process of electing members of Parliament to represent the people is at the heart of western democracy. Fiji courts are also part of an independent judicial system which is firmly rooted in western democracy. The basic civil lesson that our children learn in school is that democracy is a government of the people, by the people, for the people … Mr Qarase should answer whether he wants the western system of governance which allows him to be prime minister or the Fijian tradition which requires the chiefs to rule by virtue of their birthright and rank. Otherwise, he is just being hypocritical to save face. (4 September 2005, reacting to a speech made by Qarase at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association on 29 August, claiming that democracy was alien to Fiji).”

Epeli Ganilau (1951) Fijian politician

Miscellaneous quotes

Children, People, School, Democracy

“We should never have a doubt about Taiwan's independent status. Taiwan has been an independent and sovereign country since 23 March 1996, the day of its first direct presidential election.”

Annette Lu (1944) Taiwanese politician

Lu warns on ‘silent annexation’ by China (2013)

Country

“If he had told the voters in 1980 that truth, would American voters have signed the loan certificate for him on Election Day? Of course not! That was an election won under false pretenses. It was won with smoke and mirrors and illusions. And that's the kind of recovery we have now as well.”

Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician, Governor of New York

Democratic National Convention Address (1984)

Truth, Falseness

“If we can elect an African American as president, we can support gay marriage! Defeat prop 8! We will not give up!”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Madonna says it's time US says “I do” to gay marriage, The Sunday Times, 2008-11-09 http://www.sundaytimes.lk/081109/International/sundaytimesinternational-07.html,

Marriage, Support

“Not only, then, did Hitler do nothing to assist in the crushing of Munich’s ‘Red Republic’; he was an elected representative of his battalion during this whole period of existence. How to interpret this evidence is, nevertheless, not altogether clear. Since the Munich garrison had firmly backed the revolution since November, and again in April supported the radical move to the Räterepublik, the obvious implication must be that Hitler, in order to have been elected as a soldiers’ representative, voiced in these months the views of the socialist governments he later denounced with every fibre of his body as ‘criminal.”

Ian Kershaw (1943) British historian

Source: Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris (1999), p. 118

Support

“We need to participate in the very process of electing into office people we believe are deserving. And this long process – sometimes viewed as tedious – starts with having yourself registered properly.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Philippine Star http://www.philstar.com/cebu-news/2015/07/20/1478960/comelec-cebu-requests-six-more-registration-machines 2015

People

“Billionaires and Wall Street should not be buying elections.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

2010s, 2016, Democratic Presidential Debate in Miami (9 March 2016)

“There are worse things than losing an election; the worst thing is to lose one's convictions and not tell the people the truth.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

Responding to an assertion that his support for a ban on nuclear testing would probably cost him votes, as quoted in As We Knew Adlai : The Stevenson Story by Twenty-two Friends (1966) by Edward P. Doyle, p. 185

People, Truth

“I am rejoiced at my fate. I had rather be in my present situation than to be elected to a seat in congress for life. I am in great hopes of making a fortune for myself and family. I hope you will do the best you can and I will do the same. Do not be uneasy about me for I am with my friends.”

Davy Crockett (1786–1836) American politician

Letter to his children (9 January 1836)

Life, Fate, Family, Hope

“If I were president, I would try to be one who says, you know what, I'm a Reagan Conservative. I'm someone who believes in peace through strength, and I would try to lead the country in that way knowing that our goal is peace, and that war is the last resort, not the first resort. And, that when we go to war, we go to war in a constitutional way, which means that we have to vote on it, that war is initiated by congress, not by the president, that we go to war electively (ph). That when we go to war, we don't fight with one arm tied behind our back, we fight all out to win, but then we come home.”

Rand Paul (1963) American politician, ophthalmologist, and United States Senator from Kentucky

2015-09-16
CNN REAGAN LIBRARY DEBATE: Later Debate Full Transcript
CNN
http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2015/09/16/cnn-reagan-library-debate-later-debate-full-transcript/
2010s

War, Peace, Way, Home

“As for it's results, they have been, by the grace of Allah, positive and enormous, and have, by all standards, exceeded all expectations. This is due to many factors, chief among them, that we have found it difficult to deal with the Bush administration in light of the resemblance it bears to the regimes in our countries, half of which are ruled by the military and the other half which are ruled by the sons of kings and presidents.
Our experience with them is lengthy, and both types are replete with those who are characterised by pride, arrogance, greed and misappropriation of wealth. This resemblance began after the visits of Bush Sr to the region.
At a time when some of our compatriots were dazzled by America and hoping that these visits would have an effect on our countries, all of a sudden he was affected by those monarchies and military regimes, and became envious of their remaining decades in their positions, to embezzle the public wealth of the nation without supervision or accounting.
So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and they named it the Patriot Act, under the pretence of fighting terrorism. In addition, Bush sanctioned the installing of sons as state governors, and didn't forget to import expertise in election fraud from the region's presidents to Florida to be made use of in moments of difficulty.”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

Full transcript of bin Ladin's speech http://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2004/11/200849163336457223.html Aljazeera, (01 Nov 2004) 2000s, 2004

Hope, Fraud, Freedom, Light

“Hamas is a deeply nasty organisation, but it was democratically elected, and it is the only game in town. The boycotting of Hamas, including by our Government, has been a culpable error, from which dreadful consequences have followed.”

Gerald Kaufman (1930–2017) British politician

Speech to the House of Commons, Jan 2009

Error, Game

“I don't believe that the policies on which we fought the [1983] election ought to be ejected like some sort of spent cartridge.”

Neil Kinnock (1942) British politician

Tribune, 15 June, 1983.

“If I win (2016 ROC presidential election), I will promote peace development across the Taiwan Strait and let people enjoy the benefits.”

Hung Hsiu-chu (1948) Taiwanese politician

Hung Hsiu-chu (2015) cited in " Taiwan's ruling KMT picks pro-China Hung as presidential candidate http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/taiwan-s-ruling-kmt-picks/1993966.html?cx_tag=similar#cxrecs_s" on Channel NewsAsia, 19 July 2015

People, Peace

“He said that, uh, there is an allegation that you have won elections on a communal card. I said, there are so many media persons here, they are not noting, but now they've started. You see, this is the tragedy of the country. Because when I was talking about development, they were not ready to note even! Now do you understand why I love Cho?”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

2008, Speech, 14 January 2008

Love, Communication, Understanding, Personality

“I wish luck to you and your nation that loves you as the election results we can see testify.”

Silvio Berlusconi (1936) Italian politician

On Alexander Lukashenko, as quoted in Results of the official visit of Silvio Berlusconi to Belarus at belarus.by (1 December 2009) the official website of the Republic of Belarus http://www.belarus.by/en/press-center/news/results-of-the-official-visit-of-silvio-berlusconi-to-belarus_i_0000000549.html 2009

Love

“I am going to die. The person who succeeds me also would die. But elections, you won't have.”

Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006) Former dictator of the republic of Chile

Speech (17 June 1975), quoted in "Las frases para el bronce de Pinochet."
1970s

Personality

“This civil rights program about which you have heard so much is a farce and a sham; an effort to set up a police state in the guise of liberty. I am opposed to that program. I fought it in the Congress. It is the province of the state to run its own elections. I am opposed to the anti-lynching bill because the federal government has no business enacting a law against one kind of murder than another … If a man can tell you who you must hire, he can tell you who not to employ. I have met this head on.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

Speech in Austin, Texas http://www.arenajunkies.com/topic/190562-best-and-worst-president-of-the-century/page__st__20 (22 May 1948), as quoted in Quotations from Chairman LBJ http://www.arenajunkies.com/topic/190562-best-and-worst-president-of-the-century/page__st__20 (1968), New York: Simon and Schuster. 1940s

Law, Business, Effort

“While the so-called religious issue is necessarily and properly the chief topic here tonight, I want to emphasize from the outset that we have far more critical issues to face in the 1960 election; the spread of Communist influence, until it now festers 90 miles off the coast of Florida — the humiliating treatment of our President and Vice President by those who no longer respect our power — the hungry children I saw in West Virginia, the old people who cannot pay their doctor bills, the families forced to give up their farms — an America with too many slums, with too few schools, and too late to the moon and outer space. These are the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues — for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1960, Speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association

Hunger, War, Children, People

“On June 20, 2009, twenty-six-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan was shot to death in Iran while participating in a peaceful demonstration in Tehran. Her death became a “galvanizing symbol, both within Iran and increasingly around the world,” Rachel Maddow said on MSNBC. Video images of her plight circled the globe. The same day Roger Cohen denounced the killing on the editorial page of the New York Times. Only fifteen days later, nineteen-year-old Isis Obed Murillo was shot dead by the Honduran military during a peaceful protest in Honduras. Like Agha-Soltan’s, his death was recorded in video images that circulated on the Internet. The differential media interest in US newspaper coverage was 736-8 in favor of Agha-Soltan; the TV differential was 231-1 in favor of Agha-Soltan. The dramatic video images of Murillo’s killing never caught hold in the world beyond Honduras. The social media, which had displayed such potential for organizing protest in Iran, failed to come to life in Honduras. The Propaganda Model is as strong and applicable as it was thirty years ago. […] the performance of the MSM [mainstream media] in treating the run-up to the Iraq War, the conflict with Iran, and Russia’s alleged election “meddling” and “aggression” in Ukraine and Crimea, offer case studies of biases as dramatic as those offered in the 1988 edition of Manufacturing Consent. The Propaganda Model lives on.”

Edward S. Herman (1925–2017) American journalist

the last published words in Herman’s lifetime
Herman (2017), “Still Manufacturing Consent: The Propaganda Model at Thirty” in Roth and Huffman, eds., Censored 2018. p. 221.
2010s

Life, Death, War, World

“…success part of story of fifty years of Independence … Maintaining and strengthening political democracy at various levels has moved to new levels. Conducting successive free and fair elections, evolving and developing institutions like a relatively independent press, functioning opposition parties offering role choice, an independent and high calibre judiciary, free public debate which sometimes comes under assault, defying freedom of expression and creativity and secularism as the basic feature of our constitutional and social well being.”

K. R. Narayanan (1920–2005) 9th Vice President and the 10th President of India

Shri K. R. Narayanan President of India in Conversation with N. Ram on Doordarshan and All India Radio

Democracy, Freedom, Success, Parting

“Unfortunately, it is impossible for me to stand in person with the protesters outside Rabaa al-Adaweya square to echo their legitimate demands … Egypt's current regime has ousted the first elected president in the country's history…There are limited options for those of us who care about Egypt's future: We can either side with civil values and democracy, or with military rule, tyranny, and coercion”

Tawakkol Karman (1979) Yemeni journalist, politician, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

2010s, Morsy is the Arab World's Mandela (2013)

Democracy, History, Future, Personality

“Some party hack decreed that the people
had lost the government's confidence
and could only regain it with redoubled effort.
If that is the case, would it not be simpler,
If the government simply dissolved the people
And elected another?”

Bertolt Brecht Die Lösung

"The Solution" ["Die Lösung"] (c. 1953), as translated in Brecht on Brecht : An Improvisation (1967) by George Tabori, p. 17
Variant translation:
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had flyers distributed in Stalin Way that said
That the People had frivolously
Thrown away the Government's Confidence
And that they could only regain it
Through Redoubled Work. But wouldn't it be
Simpler if the Government
Simply dissolved the People
And elected another?

People, Confidence, Effort

“Of course, the power and authority of courts — whether to improperly take policymaking power for themselves or to engage in legitimate decision making — is dependent upon the weight of their judgment. That is, it depends on their credibility with the public and the other branches of government. Judicial decisions are obeyed, in large part, because the judgment of the federal Judiciary is respected. But it is perhaps underappreciated that when courts apply an activist philosophy that stretches the law to suit policy preferences, they actually reduce the credibility and authority of the Judiciary. In so doing, they undermine the rule of law that strengthens our democracy. In contrast, a judge who humbly understands the role of the courts in our tripartite system of government decides cases based on neutral principles. He generally defers to the judgment of the political branches, and respects precedent – the collective wisdom of those who have gone before. In so doing, that judge strengthens respect for the Judiciary, upholds the rule of law, and permits the people — through their elected representatives — to make choices about the issues of the day.”

Alberto Gonzales (1955) 80th United States Attorney General

Speech to American Enterprise Institute (January 17, 2007)

Wisdom, People, Law, Democracy

“So many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome: good government. They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

Paul Weyrich (1942–2008) American political activist

Remarks to the Religious Roundtable (August 1980), quoted in The Hidden Election (1981) by Thomas Ferguson and Joel Rogers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw

People, Country

“Another change in the constitution relates to the length of the tenure of the presidential office. In the new constitution it is six years instead of four, and the President rendered ineligible for a re-election. This is certainly a decidedly conservative change. It will remove from the incumbent all temptation to use his office or exert the powers confided to him for any objects of personal ambition. The only incentive to that higher ambition which should move and actuate one holding such high trusts in his hands, will be the good of the people, the advancement, prosperity, happiness, safety, honor, and true glory of the confederacy.”

Alexander H. Stephens (1812–1883) Vice President of the Confederate States (in office from 1861 to 1865)

The Cornerstone Speech (1861)

Happiness, People, Confidence, Change

“I have no hesitation in applying a law regardless of what I might think about it, I think any good judge recognizes his or her place in our constitutional government, and that place is not to upset the will of the people as expressed through their elected representatives. So, I do not have any compunction about following the law as written by Congress.”

Thomas Hardiman (1965) American judge

Judicial and Executive Nominations (November 14, 2006)

People, Law, Thinking

“Everybody knows I worked with Rajiv closely and we also fought each other over our beliefs. We fought the elections on the (Bofors) issue and the people gave their electoral verdict. It was an honest fight and I want to make it clear that at no point of time did I make the charge that Rajiv personally took money in the Bofors affair.”

V. P. Singh (1931–2008) Indian politician

Source: Rediff.com, At no point did I charge that Rajiv personally took money in the Bofors affair http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/feb/07inter.htm, rediff.com, 7 February 2004.

Money, People, Time, Fight

“This election, this presidential election, I think has underscored underneath it several times. We want change. And it's not change in the White House so much, as change in Washington.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2008-01-04
Countdown with Keith Olbermann
MSNBC
Television
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22540882/
2008

Thinking, Change, Time, Housing

“The Americans have sought consistently to undermine and destabilise the Governments of Grenada since 1979. They have sought consistently to undermine and destabilise the Government of Jamaica. They did so until Mr. Seaga was elected Prime Minister. They have consistently sought to undermine and destabilise any Government in the region who have sought to develop the interests of the people rather than the interests of the multinational companies that are busy exploiting those people. At the centre of the debate and of the activities of the United States lies its belief that its role is to defend the people who pay the Government — the multinational companies. The British Government are doing exactly the same. In every conference chamber around the world, the British Government support American foreign policy. They do not have a foreign policy in the Caribbean or central America. All they know is to follow the United States—except that when the issue of Grenada came up they did not know what to do. So, for three days running, we have had a pathetic appearance by the Foreign Secretary, who has been wondering what to do next. He comes to the House, wringing his hands, wondering what on earth to say next. He knows that he has been made to look an absolute idiot because he was incapable of standing up to the Americans for once. The one thing that the Americans do not respect is the Uriah Heep diplomacy that the British Government operate towards them. The Pavlovian response of agreeing to everything that the United States demands and wants has got them nowhere and has made them look incredibly stupid and shortsighted.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1983/oct/26/grenada-invasion in the House of Commons (26 October 1983). 1980s

People, Stupidity, World, Business

“Scotland and Ireland were virtually disfranchised; Edinburgh and Glasgow, the two largest cities of Scotland, had each a constituency of only thirty-three members. A majority of the members of the House of Commons were elected by six thousand voters. This state of affairs afforded ready opportunities for the moneyed aristocracy to buy seats in Parliament, by the purchase of a few voters in rotten boroughs; and also enabled the ministry to secure a servile majority in the Commons. The corruption resulting from these conditions, as exhibited in the latter half of the eighteenth century, can hardly be realized by the present generation. They afford, however, an illustration of the universal truth, that a government which does not draw its inspiration of liberty, justice, and morality from the people will soon become both tyrannical and corrupt.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1860s, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)

Money, People, Truth, Justice

“Even though this is late in an election year, there is no way we can go forward except together and no way anybody can win except by serving the people's urgent needs. We cannot stand still or slip backwards. We must go forward now together.”

Gerald Ford (1913–2006) American politician, 38th President of the United States (in office from 1974 to 1977)

1970s, First Presidential address (1974)

People, Way

“The sleep of reason encourages the elections.”

Janusz Korwin-Mikke (1942) polish politician

Sleep

“Representative democracy frequently manifests a disconnect between parliamentarians and the people, so that parliamentarians have agendas that do not correspond with the wishes of the electorate. This has led in many countries to apathy, cynicism and large-scale absenteeism in elections. What is needed is not only parliaments, but parliamentarians who genuinely represent the wishes of the electorate.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Alfred-Maurice de Zayas 2013 Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order [
2013

People, Democracy, Country

“I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating.”

William M. Tweed (1823–1878) United States politician

As quoted in Understanding American Government (2003) by Susan Welch, p. 224

“I don't know much about Americanism, but it's a damn good word with which to carry an election.”

Warren G. Harding (1865–1923) American politician, 29th president of the United States (in office from 1921 to 1923)

Actually an exchange between journalist Talcott Williams and Sen. Boies Penrose (1919)
What is Americanism?
Damn if I know, but it's going to be a damn good word with which to carry an election.
Misattributed

“Most of our political leaders are not engineers or scientists and do not listen to engineers or scientists. Today a letter from Einstein would get lost in the White House mail room, and the Manhattan Project would not even get started; it certainly could never be completed in three years. I am not aware of a single political leader in the U. S., either Democrat or Republican, who would cut health-care spending in order to free up money for biotechnology research — or, more generally, who would make serious cuts to the welfare state in order to free up serious money for major engineering projects. … Men reached the moon in July 1969, and Woodstock began three weeks later. With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that this was when the hippies took over the country, and when the true cultural war over Progress was lost. Today's aged hippies no longer understand that there is a difference between the election of a black president and the creation of cheap solar energy; in their minds, the movement towards greater civil rights parallels general progress everywhere. Because of these ideological conflations and commitments, the 1960s Progressive Left cannot ask whether things actually might be getting worse.”

Peter Thiel (1967) American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and hedge fund manager

In an editorial http://www.nationalreview.com/article/278758/end-future-peter-thiel published by National Review (2011)

Men, Money, War, Health

“The only thing I am certain of is that in the wake of this election, Iraq will be what Iraqis make of it — and the next six months will tell us a lot. I remain guardedly hopeful.”

Thomas Friedman (1953) American journalist and author

New York Times (2 December 2005) "The Measure of Success".
"The next … months" in Iraq

Hope

“I am one of what must be an increasing number who find the portentous moralisings of A. Solzhenitsyn a bore and an irritation. Scarcely any aspect of life in the countries where he passes his voluntary exile has failed to incur his pessimistic censure. Coming from Russia, where freedom of the press has been not so much unknown as uncomprehended since long before the Revolution, he is shocked to discover that a free press disseminated all kinds of false, partial and invented information and that journalists contradict themselves from one day to the next without shame and without apology. Only a Russian would find all that surprising, or fail to understand that freedom which is not misused is not freedom at all.

Like all travellers he misunderstands what he observes. It simply is not true that ‘within the Western countries the press has become more powerful than the legislative power, the executive and the judiciary’. The British electorate regularly disprove this by electing governments in the teeth of the hostility and misrepresentation of virtually the whole of the press. Our modern Munchhausen has, however, found a more remarkable mare’s nest still: he has discovered the ‘false slogan, characteristic of a false era, that everyone is entitled to know everything’. Excited by this discovery he announces a novel and profound moral principle, a new addendum to the catalogue of human rights. ‘People,’ he says, ‘have a right not to know, and it is a more valuable one.’ Not merely morality but theology illuminates the theme: people have, say Solzhenitsyn, ‘the right not to have their divine souls’ burdened with ‘the excessive flow of information’.

Just so. Whatever may be the case in Russia, we in the degenerate West can switch off the radio or television, or not buy a newspaper, or not read such parts of it as we do not wish to. I can assure Solzhenitsyn that the method works admirably, ‘right’ or ‘no right’. I know, because I have applied it with complete success to his own speeches and writings.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Letter in answer to Solzhenitsyn's Harvard statement (21 June 1978), from Reflections of a Statesman. The Writings and Speeches of Enoch Powell (London: Bellew, 1991), p. 577
1970s

Life, Hostility, People, Travel

“To politicians, solved problems represent a dire threat — of unemployment and poverty. That's why no problem ever tackled by the government has ever been solved. What they want is lots of problems they can promise to solve, so that we'll keep electing them — or letting them keep their jobs in a bureaucracy metastasizing like cancer.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Of Pharaohs and Firearms" http://www.jpfo.org/smith/smith-pharaohs.htm.

Problem

“Since ’91, it was more of poker because again, it’s America, even today is much more powerful than all the enemies combined. It’s probably the first time after the collapse of the Soviet Union that the forces of freedom, the free world, had overwhelming military and economic advantage. And also politically, it dominated the field because even the worst dictatorships now they’re trying to pretend that they have elections. Not pressing it’s advantages looks quite odd because it again create this vacuum, and also I think it affects ordinary people in these countries. Whether it’s Iran, Arab countries, Russia, because they used to look at America as a beacon of freedom and the country that stood firm defending the free world. And now it’s quite odd because America is there, but America is not there. The whole stories about current political climate here and elections, they’re for the eroding reputation of the United States, and I think the damage caused by this administration to the prestige of the country, and especially to the prestige of the presidency, this damage could take years to recover and rebuild.”

Garry Kasparov (1963) former chess world champion

2010s, Interview with Bill Kristol (2016)

People, World, Thinking, Freedom

“The population of the US is nearly 300 million, including many of the best educated, most talented, most resourceful, humane people on earth. By almost any measure of civilised attainment, from Nobel prize-counts on down, the US leads the world by miles. You would think that a country with such resources, and such a field of talent, would be able to elect a leader of the highest quality. Yet, what has happened? At the end of all the primaries and party caucuses, the speeches and the televised debates, after a year or more of non-stop electioneering bustle, who, out of that entire population of 300 million, emerges at the top of the heap? George Bush.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

"Bin Laden's victory " http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,,919618,00.html The Guardian ()

People, World, Education, Thinking

“I have often compared, in my own mind, the people of England with the people of ancient Egypt, and the Foreign Office of this country with the temples of the Egyptians. We are told by those who pass up and down the Nile that on its banks are grand temples with stately statues and massive and lofty columns, statues each one of which would have appeared almost to have exhausted a quarry in its production. You have, further, vast chambers and gloomy passages; and some innermost recess, some holy of holies, in which, when you arrive at it, you find some loathsome reptile which a nation reverenced and revered, and bowed itself down to worship. In our Foreign Office we have no massive columns; we have no statues; but we have a mystery as profound; and in the innermost recesses of it we find some miserable intrigue, in defence of which your fleets are traversing every ocean, your armies are perishing in every clime, and the precious blood of our country's children is squandered as though it had no price. I hope that an improved representation will change all this; that the great portion of our expenditure which is incurred in carrying out the secret and irresponsible doings of our Foreign Office will be placed directly under the free control of a Parliament elected by the great body of the people of the United Kingdom.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech in Glasgow (December 1858), quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), pp. 277-278.
1850s

Children, People, Secret, Hope

“Secondly, the educated citizen has an obligation to serve the public. He may be a precinct worker or President. He may give his talents at the courthouse, the State house, the White House. He may be a civil servant or a Senator, a candidate or a campaign worker, a winner or a loser. But he must be a participant and not a spectator. "At the Olympic games," Aristotle wrote, "it is not the finest and strongest men who are crowned, but they who enter the lists-for out of these the prize-men are elected. So, too, in life, of the honorable and the good, it is they who act who rightly win the prizes."”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Address at Vanderbilt University

Life, Men, Education, Game

“About 55 percent of the population believe that (UFOs) are real and that some segment of the government is hiding it from them. That's a majority of the population, more people than voted for Clinton in the last election. About 10 percent of Americans have seen (a UFO) at some point. If you go out and talk to people, they believe this stuff is real.”

Steven M. Greer (1955) American ufologist

Greer cites both the Gallup and Harris polls in this quote.
Undated

People

“In democracy, it's a continuing struggle of convincing the other person to see things the way you do. You may succeed in doing that during one particular election then fail in the next.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

"Who's afraid of People Power", Philippine Graphic, 31 January 2005, p. 28, ISSN 119-206X.
2005

Way, Democracy, Personality

“And we have so much work to do in America, because all across America, there are walls … There's a wall around Washington, D. C. The American people are, today, on the outside of that wall. And on the inside are the big corporations and the lobbyists who are working to protect a system that takes care of them. … There is another wall that divides us. It's the moral shame of 37 million of our own people who wake up in poverty every single day This is not OK. And for eight long, long years, this wall has gotten taller And there's also a wall that's divided our image in the world. The America as the beacon of hope is behind that wall. And all the world sees now is a bully. They see Iraq, Guantanamo, secret prison and government that argues that water boarding is not torture. This is not OK. That wall has to come down for the sake of our ideals and our security. We can change this. We can change it. Yes we can. If we stand together, we can change it. … This is not going to be easy. It's going to be the fight of our lives. But we're ready, because we know that this election is about something bigger than the tired old hateful politics of the past. This election is about taking down these walls that divide us, so that we can see what's possible -- what's possible, that one America that we can build together.”

John Edwards (1953) American politician

Endorsement of Senator Barack Obama on May 14, 2008. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/14/AR2008051403533.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzkAjd3xQ7w

Hate, People, Secret, World

“Well, so be it. Nothing's perfect in life, so you have an election that's not quite perfect. Is it better than not having an election? You bet.”

Donald Rumsfeld (1932) U.S. Secretary of Defense

Regards upcoming elections in Iraq http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2005/s1283005.htm, January 14, 2005. 2000s

Life, Perfection

“Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., in a mordant protest written soon after the [1952] election, found the intellectual “in a situation he has not known for a generation.” After twenty years of Democratic rule, during which the intellectual had been in the main understood and respected, business had come back into power, bringing with it “the vulgarization which has been the almost invariable consequence of business supremacy.””

Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970) American historian

Source: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1974), p. 4

Business

“National elections. Nothing is so fundamental to the integrity of a republican form of government as honesty in all that relates to the conduct of elections. I am of the opinion that the national laws governing the choice of members of the Congress should be extended to include appropriate representation of the respective parties at the ballot box ant equality of representation on the various registration boards, wherever they exist.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

Law, Box

“You must handle [the House of Lords] a little more firmly, and the time has come for unflinching and resolute action. For my part, I would not remain a member of a Liberal Cabinet one hour unless I knew that the Cabinet had determined not to hold office after the next General Election unless full powers are accorded to it which would enable it to place on the Statute Book of the realm a measure which will ensure that the House of Commons in future can carry, not merely Tory Bills, as it does now, but Liberal and progressive measures in the course of a single Parliament either with or without the sanction of the House of Lords.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the National Liberal Club (3 December 1909), quoted in Better Times: Speeches by the Right Hon. D. Lloyd George, M.P., Chancellor of the Exchequer (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1910), pp. 179-180.
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Books, Time, Future, Parting

“It‘s [Fahrenheit 9/11] the work of a moral cretin and a political idiot. And it's up to the Democratic National Committee to say, do they want to continue being photographed with this man as we go into a very important election, not just in the United States, I might add, but first Democratic elections to be held in Iraq and in Afghanistan? In a few months, we will know the outcome of all these. In all three cases, Michael Moore says that the enemy is George Bush and Saddam Hussein and Mr. Zarqawi and Mr. Bin Laden are no problem. Indeed, they are—what a wonderful way to celebrate the Fourth of July weekend, by the way. Indeed, they are the Minutemen. They‘re the staunch American revolutionaries. Does he tell this to the widows that he goes and exploits?”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

"Scarborough Country on MNSBC" http://web.archive.org/web/20070911061520/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5344115/, (2004-06-30): On Michael Moore 2000s, 2004

Way, Problem

“He's put a lock on the door of the House of Commons and he refuses to face the people of Canada through their elected representatives”

Jack Layton (1950–2011) Leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada

On Stephen Harper, after the Governor General announced Parliament was prorogued, Dec. 4, 2008[citation needed]

People, Housing

“This is nothing but a coup d’etat. It’s a dictatorship motion. They are telling everybody in the last election their vote doesn’t count.”

Rob Ford (1969–2016) Canadian politician, 64th Mayor of Toronto

Remarks Telling councillors that their motion to limit his powers as mayor is undemocratic http://www.torontosun.com/2013/11/18/council-vote-on-rob-ford-a-slap-in-face-to-democracy (18 November 2013) 2010s, 2013

“It was the college conservatives who had almost succeeded in electing John Smith to the Presidency of the United States during the last election. The fact that Smith had been dead for twenty years had not dampened their ardor; quite the contrary, many considered this the candidate’s best quality.”

Robert Sheckley book Journey Beyond Tomorrow

Source: Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1962), Chapter 8 “How Joenes Taught, and What He Learned” (pp. 70-71)

Dead

“Henry heard the vote announced which gave Sumner the needed number. Slipping under the arms of the bystanders, he ran home as hard as he could, and burst into the dining-room where Mr. Sumner was seated at table with the family. He enjoyed the glory of telling Sumner that he was elected; it was probably the proudest moment in the life of either.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Life, Family, Home

“Freedom of the press, freedom of the news media, must be subordinated to the overriding needs of the integrity of Singapore, and to the primacy of purpose of an elected government.”

Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore

Address To The General Assembly Of The International Press Institute At Helsinki Wednesday, 9th June, 1971 http://journalism.sg/lee-kuan-yews-1971-speech-on-the-press/ 1970s

Freedom

“(On the 2006 US Midterm Elections) This week, in an ironic turn of events, Iraq brought regime change to the United States.”

Amy Poehler (1971) American actress

citation needed
Weekend Update samples

Change

“The elections are not about what rallies I should or not join but rather about issues and platforms, pure intentions and commitment to principles. It is sad that they have focused on rallies as an issue for this campaign.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

The Official Website of the Senate of the Philippines http://www.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2013/0221_escudero1.asp 2013, Mid-Term Campaign Trail

Sadness

“My mission is to lead the country out of a bad situation of corruption, depression and slavery. After I rid the country of these vices, I will then organize and supervise a general election of a genuinely democratic civilian government.”

Idi Amin (1925–2003) third president of Uganda

Attributed
Source: Quoted in Uganda, the Human Rights Situation (1978), by United States Congress. Senate, p. 13 - Civil rights - 1978.

Country

“Those are the objectives - competence, consensus and vision - against which we should be judged. Of course that judgement could come earlier if the opposition parties wished to force an election!”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Principles and Priorities : Programme for Government (September 5, 2007)

“I remember being profoundly amazed that anyone would suppose that a little wooden desk would provide a safe haven in the event of an atomic bomb being dropped on Des Moines. But evidently they all took the matter seriously, for even the teacher, Miss Squat Little Fat Thing, was inserted under her desk, too—or at least as much of her as she could get under, which was perhaps 40 percent. Once I realized that no one was watching, I elected not to take part. I already knew how to get under a desk and was confident that this was not a skill that would ever need refreshing.”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

Source: The Life And Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (2006), p. 117

Confidence, Teachers, Parting

“When [Nigel Farage] was treated in the way he was in Edinburgh Alex Salmond had the opportunity to be statesman like. To deplore what had happened. To say everyone was welcome in Scotland, everyone with an elected position, everyone who had following in Scotland had a right to speak and be heard. But he didn't. It's not just people with a percentage of the vote who have the right to speak. All of us have the right to speak. What happened to Farage looked ugly in the rest of the country and the rest of the world. And the SNP I fear will take you down a road where grudge is everything.”

George Galloway (1954) British politician, broadcaster, and writer

The Express http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/407371/Question-Time-Nigel-Farage-blasts-Alex-Salmond-for-not-condeming-hostile-Edinburgh-scenes During an interview on Question time with Nigel Farage condemning the hostility shown by the Scottish people June 14, 2013

People, World, Fear, Way

“Our people are still staying in the same houses that were given to them by apartheid. Our people still stay in the shacks. They came and abandoned you here. They have forgotten about you. They are going to come back next year during elections and say ‘no, you must remember Nelson Mandela, this is the party of Mandela, and we have come a long way with the ANC’. Mandela is no more. He is dead, with his party.”

Julius Malema (1981) South African political activist

As quoted by Siviwe Feketha in Mandela is no more. He is dead, with his party, says Malema Mandela is no more. He is dead, with his party, says Malema https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/mandela-is-no-more-he-is-dead-with-his-party-says-malema-16241907, www.iol.co.za (26 July 2018)

People, Way, Housing, Dead

“The critics have no historical sense. I have no Cabinet papers by me and do not want to trust my memory. But recall the Fulham election, the Peace Ballot, Singapore, sanctions, Malta. The English will only learn by example. When I first heard of Hitler, when Ribbentrop came to see me, I thought they were all crazy. I think I brought Ramsay and Simon to meet Ribbentrop. Remember that Ramsay's health was breaking up in the last two years. He had lost his nerve in the House in the last year. I had to take all the important speeches. The moment he went I prepared for a General Election and got a bigger majority for re-armament. No power on earth could have got re-armament without a General Election except by a big split. Simon was inefficient. I had to lead the House and keep the machine together with those Labour fellows.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Conversation with Thomas Jones (21/22 January 1941), quoted in Thomas Jones, A Diary with Letters. 1931-1950 (Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 482.
1940s

Health, Peace, Thinking, Sense

“Behold you, then, my dear friend, at the head of a great army, establishing the liberties of your country against a foreign enemy. May heaven favor your cause, and make you the channel through which it may pour its favors. While you are exterminating the monster aristocracy, and pulling out the teeth and fangs of its associate, monarchy, a contrary tendency is discovered in some here. A sect has shown itself among us, who declare they espoused our new Constitution, not as a good and sufficient thing in itself, but only as a step to an English constitution, the only thing good and sufficient in itself, in their eye. It is happy for us that these are preachers without followers, and that our people are firm and constant in their republican purity. You will wonder to be told that it is from the eastward chiefly that these champions for a king, lords and commons come. They get some important associates from New York, and are puffed up by a tribe of agitators which have been hatched in a bed of corruption made up after the model of their beloved England. Too many of these stock-jobbers and king-jobbers have come into our legislature, or rather too many of our legislature have become stock-jobbers and king-jobbers. However, the voice of the people is beginning to make itself heard, and will probably cleanse their seats at the ensuing election.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Letter to Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette (16 June 1792)
1790s

Happiness, People, Country

“We had a president, Moi, who was a dictator. He ruled the country with an iron fist, and anyone who dared question his authority was arrested, tortured, jailed or even killed. That meant that people were taught to be smart cowards, stay out of trouble. Being a coward was not an insult. Being a coward was a compliment. We used to be told that a coward goes home to his mother. What that meant: that if you stayed out of trouble you're going to stay alive. I used to question this advice, and eight years ago we had an election in Kenya, and the results were violently disputed. What followed that election was terrible violence, rape, and the killing of over 1,000 people. My work was to document the violence. As a photographer, I took thousands of images, and after two months, the two politicians came together, had a cup of tea, signed a peace agreement, and the country moved on. I was a very disturbed man because I saw the violence firsthand. I saw the killings. I saw the displacement. I met women who had been raped, and it disturbed me, but the country never spoke about it. We pretended. We all became smart cowards. We decided to stay out of trouble and not talk about it.”

Boniface Mwangi (1983) Kenyan photojournalist

The day I stood up alone

Women, People, Peace, Home

“More people vote for a TV show than a political party. And those who do vote think a man dressed as a monkey is more likely to deliver on his election pledges than any party.”

Theresa May (1956) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Conservative Party conference http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/oct/07/conservatives2002.conservatives1 (07 October 2002)

People, Thinking

“Living proof that a pig's bladder on the end of a stick can be elected to Parliament”

Tony Banks (1942–2006) British politician

"Tony Banks close to death after stroke" http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article337229.ece, The Independent (online edition), 8 January 2006. on right-wing Conservative MP Terry Dicks

“In each of the cathedral churches there was a bishop, or an archbishop of fools, elected; and in the churches immediately dependent upon the papal see a pope of fools. These mock pontiffs had usually a proper suit of ecclesiastics who attended upon them, and assisted at the divine service, most of them attired in ridiculous dresses resembling pantomimical players and buffoons; they were accompanied by large crowds of the laity, some being disguised with masks of a monstrous fashion, and others having their faces smutted; in one instance to frighten the beholders, and in the other to excite their laughter: and some, again, assuming the habits of females, practised all the wanton airs of the loosest and most abandoned of the sex. During the divine service this motley crowd were not contended with singing of indecent songs in the choir, but some of them ate, and drank, and played at dice upon the altar, by the side of the priest who celebrated the mass. After the service they put filth into the censers, and ran about the church, leaping, dancing, laughing, singing, breaking obscene jests, and exposing themselves in the most unseemly attitudes with shameless impudence. Another part of these ridiculous ceremonies was, to shave the precentor of fools upon a stage erected before the church, in the presence of the populace; and during the operation, he amused them with lewd and vulgar discourses, accompanied by actions equally reprehensible. The bishop, or the pope of fools, performed the divine service habited in the pontifical garments, and gave his benediction to the people before they quitted the church. He was afterwards seated in an open carriage, and drawn about to the different parts of the town, attended by a large train of ecclesiastics and laymen promiscuously mingled together; and many of the most profligate of the latter assumed clerical habits in order to give their impious fooleries the greater effect; they had also with them carts filled with ordure, which they threw occasionally upon the populace assembled to see the procession. These spectacles were always exhibited at Christmas-time, or near to it, but not confined to one particular day.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 345
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Festival of Fools

People, Fools, Sex, Fashion

“People of America: the world is following your news in regards to your invasion of Iraq, for people have recently come to know that, after several years of tragedies of this war, the vast majority of you want it stopped. Thus, you elected the Democratic Party for this purpose, but the Democrats haven't made a move worth mentioning.”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

"New OBL Tape: Iraq, Democratic Control" ABC News (7 September 2007) http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/09/new-obl-tape-ir.html. 2000s, 2004, 2004 Video Broadcast on Al-Jazeera October 29

War, People, World

“We can determine America's future. After all, that's what an election is all about. So let's decide for optimism, not pessimism; for hope, not despair; for strength, not weakness; for victory, not defeat.”

Rudy Giuliani (1944–2001) American businessperson and politician, former mayor of New York City

December 15, 2007. http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/candidates/rudy.giuliani.html

Hope, Optimism, Future, Victory

“The Muslim Majilis Mushawarat, which is the united front of Muslim organizations in India, includes… educated Muslims… and orthodox Muslims… The election manifesto of the Mushawarat … contained a 9-point charter of demands which can only be interpreted as asserting that Muslim Indians constituted a 'sovereign' society.”

Hamid Dalwai (1932–1977) Indian social reformer, thinker and writer

Muslim politics, p.80, quoted from Elst, Koenraad (2014). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p. 364-6

Education

“Elections should be held only by the elections commission. The efforts by Jumhoory Party leader Gasim Ibrahim to keep [scandal hit] judge Ali Hameed in the Supreme Court bench are quite clear to me. He is also trying to bribe some members of our party's parliamentary group.”

Mohamed Nasheed (1967) Maldivian politician, 4th president of the Maldives

Quoted on Haveeru, "Nasheed accuses Supreme Court of trying to 'rob' council elections" http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/53270, January 14, 2013.

Effort

“The United States in general conducts very strict security measures for everyone who wishes to visit it, which has been in place for quite a few years. It’s also important to know that during election campaigns many statements are made and many things are said, however afterwards governing the country would be something different, and will be subject to many factors.”

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (1954) Current President of Egypt

Remarks by al-Sisi responding to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump proposing to ban Muslim immigration to the US during an interview with CNN's Erin Burnett on 21 September 2016 http://time.com/4502537/egypt-sisi/ 2016

Country

“Let's dispel this fiction once and for all that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing; he's undergoing a systematic effort to change this country and make America more like the rest of the world. If I'm elected we'll embrace what makes America the greatest country in the world.”

Marco Rubio (1971) U.S. Senator from state of Florida, United States; politician

At the Republican presidential debate (2016).
2010s, 2016

World, Effort, Change, Country

“Britain's continuing membership of the Community would mean the end of Britain as a completely self-governing nation and the end of our democratically elected Parliament as the supreme law making body in the United Kingdom.”

Tony Benn (1925–2014) British Labour Party politician

Letter to Bristol constituents (29 December 1974), reprinted in Tony Benn, 'The Common Market: Loss of Self-Government', in M. Holmes (ed.), The Eurosceptical Reader (Springer, 2016), p. 38
1970s

Law, Communication

Quotes about election page 6

Quotes about election
page 6