16 Eugene McCarthy Quotes on Politics

Eugene McCarthy quotes on politics

2. The two-party system has given this country the war of Lyndon Johnson, the Watergate of Nixon, and the incompetence of Carter. Saying we should keep the two-party system simply because it is working is like saying the Titanic voyage was a success because a few people survived on life-rafts.

3. The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.

4. There is only one thing to do - take it to the country!

5. We do not need presidents who are bigger than the country, but rather ones who speak for it and support it.

6. I'm kind of an accidental instrument, really, through which I hope that the judgment and the will of this nation can be expressed.

12. 'Lament for an Aging Politician'

13. As long as the differences and diversities of mankind exist, democracy must allow for compromise, for accommodation, and for the recognition of differences.

14. Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important.

15. In politics one may remain aloof and become irrelavent or get involved and get corrupted.

17. It is dangerous for a national candidate to say things that people might remember.

18. Nixon is the kind of guy who, if you were drowning twenty feet from shore, would throw you a fifteen-foot rope.

19. No man could be equipped for the presidency if he has never been tempted by one of the seven cardinal sins.

20. One thing about a pig, he thinks he's warm if his nose is warm. I saw a bunch of pigs one time that had frozen together in a rosette, each one's nose tucked under the rump of the one in front. We have a lot of pigs in politics.

21. The Senate is the last primitive society in the world. We still worship the elders of the tribe and honor the territorial imperative.

22. This is, I say, the time for all good men not to go to the aid of their party, but to come to the aid of their country.

23. The function of liberal Republicans is to shoot the wounded after the battle.