38 Hillary Clinton Quotes on Politics

Hillary Clinton quotes on politics

5. You know, I'm not sitting here like some little woman standing by my man, like Tammy Wynette. I'm sitting here because I love him, and I respect him, and I honor what he's been through and what we've been through together. And you know, if that's not enough for people, then heck, don't vote for him.

6. I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president.

11. From my perspective, this is part of the continuing political campaign against my husband: I mean, look at the very people who are involved in this. They have popped up in other settings. The great story here for anybody willing to find it, write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.

16. I was one who supported giving President Bush the authority, if necessary, to use force against Saddam Hussein. I believe that that was the right vote. I have had many disputes and disagreements with the administration over how that authority has been used, but I stand by the vote to provide the authority because I think it was a necessary step in order to maximize the outcome that did occur in the Security Council with the unanimous vote to send in inspectors.

17. He ran a gas station down in St. Louis: No, Mahatma Gandhi was a great leader of the 20th century.

18. I wonder if it's possible to be a Republican and a Christian at the same time.

19. Many of you are well enough off that: the tax cuts may have helped you: We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.

20. And Israel is not only our ally; it is a beacon of what democracy can and should mean: If the people of the Middle East are not sure what democracy means, let them look to Israel.

21. In defeating terror, Israel's cause is our cause.

23. It is time to put policy ahead of politics and success ahead of the status quo. It is time for a new strategy to produce what we need: a stable Iraq government that takes over for its own people so our troops can finish their job.

30. In two nights you're going to have the Republican candidates here. They all support the war. They all support the president. They all supported the escalation. Each of us is trying in our own way to bring the war to an end.

35. It's not easy, it's not easy. And I couldn't do it if I just didn't, you know, passionately believe it was the right thing to do. You know, I've had so many opportunities from this country, I just don't want to see us fall backwards - no. So - you know, this is very personal for me. It's not just political, it's not just public. I see what's happening, and we have to reverse it. And some people think elections are a game, they think it's like who's up or who's down. It's about our country, it's about our kids' futures, and it's really about all of us together. You know some of us put ourselves out there and do this against some pretty difficult odds. And we do it, each one of us, because we care about our country. But some of us are right and some of us are wrong, some of us are ready and some of us are not, some of us know what we will do to do on day one and some of haven't really thought that through enough. And so when we look at the array of problems we have and the potential for it getting - really spinning out of control, this is one of the most important elections America's ever faced. So as tired as I am - and I am - and as difficult as it is to try to kind of keep up with what I try to do on the road like occasionally exercise and try to eat right - it's tough when the easiest food is pizza - I just believe so strongly in who we are as a nation. So I'm going to do everything I can to make my case and, you know, then the voters get to decide.

36. It did take a Clinton to clean up after the first Bush, and I think it might take another one to clean up after the second Bush.

37. You know, there's a great saying in Texas - you've all heard it - all hat and no cattle. Well, after seven years of George Bush, we need a lot less hat and a lot more cattle.

39. It's time that we move from good words to good works, from sound bites to sound solutions.

40. It's not us making this charge. It's the media.

41. Lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in. It's change you can Xerox.

42. Shame on you, Barack Obama! [15]

51. You know, I have written about this and described it in many different settings, and I did misspeak the other day. This has been a very long campaign.

52. I can tell you that I may be a lot of things but I am not dumb. And I wrote about going to Bosnia in my book in 2004, I laid it all out there. And you're right, on a couple of occasions in the last weeks I just said some things that weren't in keeping with what I knew to be the case and what I had written about in my book. And you know, I'm embarrassed by it. I'm very sorry I said it. I have said that, you know, it just didn't jive with what I had written about and knew to be the truth. So I know that it is something that some people have said, 'Wait a minute. What happened here?' But I have talked about this and written about it and then, unfortunately, in a few occasions I was not as accurate as I have been in the past.

55. Not too long ago, my opponent made a prediction. He said I would probably win Pennsylvania, he would win North Carolina, and Indiana would be the tiebreaker. Well, tonight we've come from behind, we've broken the tie, and, thanks to you, it's full speed on to the White House.

56. We just can't trust the American people to make those types of choices: Government has to make those choices for people.

58. She could be president someday. She could go to any state and be elected to the Senate.

59. She is one of the most ruthless people we have ever seen in politics.

60. Hillary Clinton, our junior senator from New York , announced that she has no intentions of ever, ever running for office of the President of the

61. 'She's the most unbelievable actress I have ever met,' said a woman who worked on Hillary's Senate campaign. 'I remember one time at a Women's Leadership Forum event in New York, thirty of us sat around Hillary, talking about politics. And she said, 'You know, I love this organization, not just because we sit around and talk about politics, but because of the bonds of friendship forming around us.' The way she said it, people were riveted by her performance. But I had gotten to know her, and I could tell she didn't mean it. She has this unbelievable ability to be a liar. She is soulless.'

63. It's not a very big thing to say, 'I made a mistake' on the war, and typical of Hillary Clinton that she can't. She's advised by so many smart advisers who are covering every base. I think that America was better served when the candidates were chosen in smoke-filled rooms.

65. Without nepotism, Hillary would be running for the president of Vassar.

66. We need a bitch facing down terrorists, Iran and Congress.

68. I can't make her younger, taller, or change her gender. I can't do anything other than to tell you who she is.

69. With Hillary at her side, Suha Arafat made the deliberately false allegation that 'Our [Palestinian] people have been submitted to the daily and intensive use of poisonous gas by the Israeli forces, which has led to an increase in cancer cases among women and children.' Mrs. Arafat also accused Israel of contaminating much of the water sources used by Palestinians with 'chemical materials' and poisoning Palestinian women and children with toxic gases. Instead of reacting with outrage, Hillary Clinton sat by silently - and gave her a hug and a kiss when she finished speaking. Later, many hours after the event, and only after a media furor put her on the spot for what many view as a bit more than a mere political 'faux pas', Mrs. Clinton called on 'all sides' to refrain from 'inflammatory rhetoric and baseless accusations' - including Israel, whose leaders made no such accusations. Glossing over this remarkably repugnant affair, Mrs. Clinton has yet to specifically contradict and denounce the monstrous lies uttered by Yasser Arafat's wife in her presence.

70. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's latest campaign finance report, published Wednesday night, appeared even to her most stalwart supporters and donors to be a road map of her political and management failings.

72. I am watching Hillary Clinton in her victory speech in New Hampshire: they just threw a bunch of college kids behind her, and had her talk about student loans, and had her daughter come out for a long awkward hug: does anyone actually buy it? Surely young people are too media savvy to be fooled by this kind of shit. Do we live in a democracy so we can just keep electing the same families? Barack is the first candidate in my lifetime to strip some of this bullshit away, and I just hope we don't blow this chance. Man if we miss this opportunity we don't deserve it: how bad does it have to get?

73. Say what you will about the Clintons, you cannot acquit them of having played the race card several times in both directions and of having done so in the most vulgar and unscrupulous fashion. Anyone who thinks that this equals 'change' is a fool, and an easily fooled fool at that.

74. At what point does somebody who's been endorsed by Richard Mellon Scaife, who compliments Fox News, and who touts Karl Rove's math ability actually cease to be a Democrat anymore?

77. Our correspondent Andrea Mitchell reporting tonight that 23 members of Congress, strong Clinton supporters, calling her today, saying they would have to throw their support to Senator Obama; Senator Clinton replying she thought that made sense, adding that she would have another meeting with supporters on Friday to discuss the next steps. No indication if those steps will be the termination of her campaign or merely its suspension. Her decision, the New York Times reporting tonight, came after a day of telephone conversations with supporters on Capital Hill on what she should do now, now that Mr. Obama had claimed enough delegates to be able to clinch the nomination. Mrs. Clinton had initially said she had wanted to wait before making any decision, but her aids said that in conversations some of her closest supporters had said it was urgent that she step aside.

78. [The conference call] expanded because more members of Congress wanted to get in on it. They wanted to sound off on Hillary Clinton's inclination to stretch this out, to wait until she heard those emails from her supporters, to give herself space and time. She wanted to use leverage, and she thought she would have more leverage if she waited. In fact her leverage was dissipating day by day because these members of Congress ... were telling us that Senators were coming up [to Charlie Rangle, asking to join a conference call], I want to switch over but I can't without her releasing us. So there was a lot of frustration and embarassment and anger among her supporters on the Hill. ... House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issuing that letter saying it had to be done by Friday. ... I'm persuaded that this was pressure from her supporters, that Barack Obama really did respect her desire for the time to unwind this. I think there was a lot of discomfort and displeasure with the way she addressed her supporters last night. They were not happy about [Clinton campaign chairman] Terry McAuliffe announcing ... , 'This is the next president of the United States.' That really rubbed them the wrong way. And Charlie Rangle said openly and on the record ... , 'I didn't like what I heard. It was not gracious. Once he hit the magic number, she should have conceded and endorsed, and it put us in a terrible spot.'

79. They were urged to assemble that conference call and to speak frankly to Hillary by some of the top strategists around Hillary. ... Close associates of hers, friends of hers were saying she really didn't want the vice presidency. She really didn't want it, even though she wouldn't mind being offered it, or talked about it. Some of what we know tonight is that in the vetting [of potential VP candidates] process that's going to be set up, they were going to demand, that is, Jim Johnson and the others looking at her as a possible candidate, that Bill Clinton open up the records of the Clinton Library -- all the donors, the tens of millions of dollars, where they came from? And I think Hillary's reluctance to more fully really consider or give her heart to the notion of the vice presidency is she knew that it would require a legal vetting of her husband, and she he couldn't pass it. ... If she wants Obama's fundraising prowess, if she wants contributors to help erase that enormous debt that she's got, she needs to quickly get back in the fold and get with the program, and I think that's what she's doing now. I really don't think it's about the Veep thing because the Obama people have pretty much already said as of today that they're really not interested.