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d11e607
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Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.
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politics
hope
american-ts
educated-voters
political-education
vote
elections
americans
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Gore Vidal |
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9deaf17
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When one with honeyed words but evil mind Persuades the mob, great woes befall the state.
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false-promises
falsehood
elections
deception
government
seduction
tyranny
deceit
power
evil
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Euripides |
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2f9e5b6
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The Bible is right: A deluge of images does encourage idolatry. Look at the cults of personality in America today. Look at Hollywood. Look at Washington. I'd like to see the next presidential race be run according to Second Commandment principles. No commercials. A radio-only debate. We need an ugly president. I know we're missing out on some potential Abe Lincolns because they'd look gawky and gangly on TV.
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politics
graven-images
page-106
second-commandment
elections
president
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A.J. Jacobs |
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50f4e71
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The point is that television does not reveal who the best man is. In fact, television makes impossible the determination of who is better than whom, if we mean by 'better' such things as more capable in negotiation, more imaginative in executive skill, more knowledgeable about international affairs, more understanding of the interrelations of economic systems, and so on. The reason has, almost entirely, to do with 'image.' But not because politicians are preoccupied with presenting themselves in the best possible light. After all, who isn't? It is a rare and deeply disturbed person who does not wish to project a favorable image. But television gives image a bad name. For on television the politician does not so much offer the audience an image of himself, as offer himself as an image of the audience. And therein lies one of the most powerful influences of the television commercial on political discourse.
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campaigns
irrelevancy
polling
politics
discourse
debate
elections
democracy
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Neil Postman |
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512cc6a
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The only people truly bound by campaign promises are the voters who believe them.
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politics
elections
politics-of-the-united-states
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Christopher Hitchens |
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0ba66e3
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"New Rule: Conservatives have to stop rolling their eyes every time they hear the word "France." Like just calling something French is the ultimate argument winner. As if to say, "What can you say about a country that was too stupid to get on board with our wonderfully conceived and brilliantly executed war in Iraq?" And yet an American politician could not survive if he uttered the simple, true statement: "France has a better health-care system than we do, and we should steal it." Because here, simply dismissing an idea as French passes for an argument. John Kerry? Couldn't vote for him--he looked French. Yeah, as a opposed to the other guy, who just looked stupid. Last week, France had an election, and people over there approach an election differently. They vote. Eighty-five percent turned out. You couldn't get eighty-five percent of Americans to get off the couch if there was an election between tits and bigger tits and they were giving out free samples. Maybe the high turnout has something to do with the fact that the French candidates are never asked where they stand on evolution, prayer in school, abortion, stem cell research, or gay marriage. And if the candidate knows about a character in a book other than Jesus, it's not a drawback. The electorate doesn't vote for the guy they want to have a croissant with. Nor do they care about private lives. In the current race, Madame Royal has four kids, but she never got married. And she's a socialist. In America, if a Democrat even thinks you're calling him "liberal," he grabs an orange vest and a rifle and heads into the woods to kill something. Royal's opponent married, but they live apart and lead separate lives. And the people are with that, for the same reason they're okay with nude beaches: because they're not a nation of six-year-olds who scream and giggle if they see pee-pee parts. They have weird ideas about privacy. They think it should be private. In France, even mistresses have mistresses. To not have a lady on the side says to the voters, "I'm no good at multitasking." Like any country, France has its faults, like all that ridiculous accordion music--but their health care is the best in the industrialized world, as is their poverty rate. And they're completely independent of Mid-East oil. And they're the greenest country. And they're not fat. They have public intellectuals in France. We have Dr. Phil. They invented sex during the day, lingerie, and the tongue. Can't we admit we could learn from them?"
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politics
elections
france
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Bill Maher |
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984c8f8
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During the 1992 election I concluded as early as my first visit to New Hampshire that Bill Clinton was hateful in his behavior to women, pathological as a liar, and deeply suspect when it came to money in politics. I have never had to take any of that back, whereas if you look up what most of my profession was then writing about the beefy, unscrupulous 'New Democrat,' you will be astonished at the quantity of sheer saccharine and drool. Anyway, I kept on about it even after most Republicans had consulted the opinion polls and decided it was a losing proposition, and if you look up the transcript of the eventual Senate trial of the president--only the second impeachment hearing in American history--you will see that the last order of business is a request (voted down) by the Senate majority leader to call Carol and me as witnesses. So I can dare to say that at least I saw it through.
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money
lies
history
women
politics
presidents
us-presidents
chauvinism
democratic-party-us
impeachment
new-democrats
republican-party-us
us-presidential-election-1992
us-senate
impeachment-of-bill-clinton
pathology
new-hampshire
carol-blue
bill-clinton
elections
united-states
corruption
trials
misogyny
sexism
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Christopher Hitchens |
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523034b
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I've always found the thousand dollar dinners more unsettling than the twenty-five-thousand dollar ones --- if someone pays the Republican National Committee twenty-five thousand dollars (or, more likely, fifty per couple) to breathe the same air as Charlie for an hour or two, then it's clear the person has money to spare. What breaks my heart is when it's apparent through their accent or attire that a person isn't well off but has scrimped to attend an event with us. We're not worth it! I want to say. You should have paid off your credit-card bill, invested in your grandchild's college fund, taken a vacation to the Ozarks. Instead, in a few weeks, they receive in the mail a photo with one or both of us, signed by an autopen, which they can frame so that we might grin out into their living room for years to come.
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politics
politician-s-wife
elections
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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d90fcc7
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It is truth, in the old saying, that is 'the daughter of time,' and the lapse of half a century has not left us many of our illusions. Churchill tried and failed to preserve one empire. He failed to preserve his own empire, but succeeded in aggrandizing two much larger ones. He seems to have used crisis after crisis as an excuse to extend his own power. His petulant refusal to relinquish the leadership was the despair of postwar British Conservatives; in my opinion this refusal had to do with his yearning to accomplish something that 'history' had so far denied him--the winning of a democratic election.
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time
history
truth
crisis
british-empire
conservative-party-uk
elections
imperialism
soviet-union
united-states
winston-churchill
power
britain
democracy
russia
cold-war
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Christopher Hitchens |
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c54cf21
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Democrats comprised 37% of voting electorate in 200 compared with 46% in 1960. If the electorate of 2000 had the same balance of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents as the electorate of 1960, Gore would have won an additional 3% of the vote.
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republicnas
elections
democrats
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Donald P. Green |