Quotes by John Podesta

• If you ask the people who are professional political analysts, they would say that the way redistricting has worked, that the Republicans have something of a lock on the House until a redistricting occurs after 2010, particularly as a result of what DeLay did in Texas.
• That doesn't necessarily mean they have to have an explicit proposal that they put forward that all Democrats sign up to, but I think they need to throw some ideas out that, at least directionally, point the way forward.
• There are people who kind of gravitate towards running politics based on new ideas and issues, and that was what the secret was for Clinton.
• So I think it's important to communicate with the people in terms of what the real facts are on these proposals and try to have a discussion and a dialogue that gives people information. I think they're hungry for that rather than just political rhetoric.
• So I think in those circumstances, there's some potential that you could see a big pendulum swing like 1994, which people you thought weren't vulnerable all of the sudden get in trouble.
• Realistically, I think we are not prepared to go home until we do get more teachers and lower class sizes.
• In fact, I think that Governor Clinton, when he was running, and President Clinton, when he was serving, actually governed with a wide range of advisors and a perspective that blended the best of ideas from the center and the left.
• If medicine was practiced in 1965 the way it's practiced today, there's no question that prescriptions would have been included in Medicare.
• I think that what we've been able to do is put together both a good group of scholars and analysts and people who aggressively want to make the case to the American public.
• I think that people have to have to have a sense of what ideas are one the progressive side, the Democratic side in order ultimately to be effective in the political world.
• I think if you look at yesterday's New York Times poll, particularly when you judge Democrats in Congress versus the Republicans in Congress, people put a little more faith, or even a little more than a little more faith in the Democrats in Congress.
• First and foremost, when I think of him - I'm prejudiced; I worked for the guy for six and a half years - when I think of him, I think of him first and foremost as an idea politician.
• I believe that President Clinton considered the legal merits of the arguments for the pardon as he understood them, and he rendered his judgment, wise or unwise, on the merits.
• Ultimately I think what people care about, particularly on an issue like Social Security, is not really what's right and what's left but what's right and what's wrong.
• If that's your definition of the Clinton faction, then I think that that seems to be in ascendancy. That might include a guy like John Edwards, who's just starting this new center in Chapel Hill to deal with issues of poverty and work.