Newt Gingrich is one of the brightest people in the Republican Party and he's always been a little unorthodox in his approach to politics, but that's what makes him Newt Gingrich.
I don't see politics as one or two people just making or delivering announcements - it's also about winning public support and the public enthusiasm. You've got to win public support.
Something often neglected in popular accounts of the Wild West is the extent to which its dramas were colored by the politics and personal resentments left by the Civil War.
I got a job with a law firm in Portland after a couple of years with Senator Muskie. But by then, my interest in politics had been sparked, through meeting Senator Muskie, through seeing what he did.
I was raised as a Christian, where all you're taught is to be humble, even if you did something right. Politics is the complete opposite of: you do something a little nice, and you tell everyone.
The tax issue is the most powerful issue in American politics going back to the Tea Party. People say, 'Oh, Grover Norquist has power.' No. Grover Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform focus on the tax issue. The tax issue is a powerful issue.
I've learned a lot about what kind of actor I want or do not want to be while being on set. I sit back and observe how other actors treat the totem pole of set politics.
Whatever your supposed politics are - left, right - if you put it in a human connection, most people will rise to the occasion and feel the human pain in a way that they might not if it was presented in a more conceptual way.
I honestly believe that there's an element in this country, in our politics, that does not want to see a businessman succeed at getting the nomination for the Republican party, and does not want me to succeed at becoming President of the United State...
Every week I read about myself in a magazine, about something that I haven't done or some place that I've never been or don't even know. It's just gossip, rumors, egos, and politics.
I became active in politics because I saw the possibility, if we all sat back and did nothing, of a world in which there would no longer be any stages for actors to act on.
The battle in American politics used to be for the middle. Now, it's all about the building and the intensity of support on the far left and far right wings of both parties. And we have forgotten about the people here in the middle.
Democrats always like to brag that their guys are smarter than the opponents and Republicans always like to brag that their guys are more moral than the opponents. But if you're looking for morals in politics you're looking for bananas in the cheese ...
The legions of reporters who cover politics don't want to quit the clash and thunder of electoral combat for the dry duty of analyzing the federal budget. As a consequence, we have created the perpetual presidential campaign.
We in the Middle East like to talk politics, we like to argue. Just look at the three prophets - Moses, Jesus and Mohammad. They are all from this small region which creates problems all the time.
I think we have a fascinating new and quite dominant input into politics - and it wont go away. From time to time, people articulate a view that we should ban opinion polls, but that's nonsense.
My Methodist upbringing was very formative in my politics. I was born in 1969, and there was all this ecumenical 'we're in this together' sensitivity that was part of the United Methodist Church in the 1970s.
You know, I'm a comedian the same as Bill Maher and Jon Stewart. We all came up the same way. The three of us have interest in politics; I call us fundits, we're fundits! We're not pundits!
I grew up in an apolitical household. I never left the country. When I became an adult, I started traveling and became interested in politics, and I probably talked about things in a silly, ignorant way.
Granted, I'm more interested in technology than most people, and less interested in politics than most. But I don't like to think about categories. I really see myself as a general non-fiction writer.
Rush Limbaugh, we expect nonsense from him. But the Vatican, that's another story. When the Vatican is so threatened that it launches attacks on nuns, well, you know what they say in politics, a hit dog hollers.
