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The pattern of American presidential elections is that the more optimistic candidate, whether it's John Kennedy and let's get America moving again, Ronald Reagan, it's morning in America, or Barack Obama, yes, we can, always wins, or nearly always wins.

Mark Shields

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Mark Shields
Age: 87
Born: 1937
Born: May 25
Columnist
Writer
Weymouth
Massachusetts
Mark Stephen Shields
America
John
Candidate
Always
Obama
Wins
Election
Pattern
Morning
Optimistic
Winning
Candidates
Ronald
American
Presidential
Kennedy
Whether
Nearly
Elections
Moving
Patterns
Reagan

More quotes by Mark Shields

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One of the first things every press secretary assures you is, the boss has a wonderful sense of humor, because not to have a sense of humor is considered flagrantly un-American.
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American education will be determined by the quality of American public education, and that's public schools that are available.
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If an abduction is reported, it is dealt with in the same way as a kidnap.
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[Democrats] have got to start winning elections. That involves not some great idea, but it also involves recruiting candidates. And Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, who has given obnoxiousness a new definition in his personal behavior, oftentimes in his dealings with the press, had a very good point.
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[Donald] Trump is instructive.For Trump, it was that the global economy and the international world order were failing regular people.
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Critics of Donald Trump take him literally, but not seriously. His supporters take him seriously, but not literally.
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The Democratic Party is a coalition. Its strength and its weakness is, it's a coalition of interest groups, caucuses. It's a lot less homogeneous than the Republican Party, where people tend to believe the same things and oftentimes look alike.
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The problem with smear campaigns is that too often they work.
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John McCain has become the de facto running mate of George W. Bush.
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We have weakened the parties and strengthened all the special interests.
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When the size of the group supporting your cause reaches a critical mass, any legislator or elected official has to pay attention.
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That's the job of a free press is to hold the lamp up, to investigate, to hold accountable. And denying access, as Sean Spicer did , is the first step toward a dictatorship.
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George W. Bush in 2000 went to private financing for the nomination, but he accepted public funding in the general. And, quite frankly, so did - it was broken in 2008, when Barack Obama decided he wasn't going to do that.
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The Republicans have, with some pride - George W. Bush won the White House by promising to restore dignity to the Oval Office. And they were or presented themselves as the family - the party of family values.
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Being a party chair, you really have a chance to make a difference. but what the Democrats have to do is recognize and accept the fact that they're at their lowest point [in 2017] since 1928 in the United States House of Representatives and their lowest point since 1925 in states.
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I am struck the whole litany of people, especially of that era, who were involved in some scandal or another. Some of it was sexual. Some of it was more financial. And it was just all concentrated in a lot of people all at once.
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That's what the conservative movement has become, is basically an annex of the [Donald] Trump campaign.
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Clinton's major problem, and the two aren't separable really because there is hope in the country, the hope - - optimism has slipped dramatically, make no mistake about every measurement shows that. But the hope is still there. Hope is with him. People want change. They see him as the best chance for change.
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If you only make fights that you're going to win, there would be no women's vote in America, there would be no civil rights laws in the country.
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Mitt Romney was the man who stood up to Donald Trump early, hard, never wavered.
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