Mark McKinnon quotes:

Outside events can change a presidential campaign, a president, and the history of the nation: the Iranian hostage crisis, the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, the downing of the helicopter in Mogadishu, Somalia, the suicide attack on the USS Cole, and, of course, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

A troubled economy is always the sitting president's fault. It was when Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter, when Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush, and when Barack Obama defeated John McCain by running against George W. Bush.

Advocacy groups and voters are not wrong to push candidates to declare their position clearly on policy issues. That is good citizenship. Hard questions should be asked of every candidate, every politician. And those public servants should be prepared to answer, but in their own words.

Defending birthright citizenship is about being on the right side of liberty. The 14th Amendment is a great legacy of the Republican Party.

My brother is one of my true heroes. Steady and sober where I am impulsive and emotional.

The problem with State of the Union speeches is that they are, by their nature and design, alphabet soup. It's hard to know what a president really cares about when they run down a laundry list and check every issue box under the sun for fear they will offend some constituency if they don't.

There's only one way we're going to change our political climate and ensure we establish some respect in our discourse. And that is to show there is a real price to pay for being a disrespectful partisan idiot.

A few words about Sarah Palin: She is one of the most fascinating women I have ever met. She crackles with energy like a live electrical wire and on first meeting gets about three inches from your face.

Running for president is hard. But it's good preparation. Because being president is a lot harder.

Politics only makes the difficult challenge of marriage even harder, with the demands of the job and the public spotlight it casts on a union.

As in nature, politics abhors a vacuum. Without a strong voice for more moderate leadership, the Tea Party is filling that vacuum.

Republicans working in leadership and the trenches are largely old, white, male, out-of-touch, out of ideas, technology averse, and living in the past.

To open up new markets and create American jobs, we need to make global bilateral free trade agreements a priority as they were under the Clinton administration.

A failure to act is a terrible, stunning legacy for any leader. But far worse when it is the president of the United States. And that's the point driven home by Romney's selection of Ryan, who dared to lead when Obama did not.

Now personally, I think the president should golf every day and never have a press conference. I want the leader of the free world to be as stress-free as possible. And if golf helps fade the psychic heat from the job, by all means tee it up often, Mr. President.

I think that the press has a duty and an obligation to report on local government, state government, federal government - to be aggressive, to do its job. And its job is to report on whatever it's covering.

Public employees contribute real value for the benefit of all citizens. Public-union bosses collect real money from all taxpayers for the benefit of a few.

Washington doesn't have just a spending problem, or just an entitlement problem, or just a taxing problem. We have a leadership problem. Fix that, and the first three problems are solved.

Negativity drove me out of politics in the mid-Nineties.

Conservative women in politics run a punishing gauntlet. They endure psychological evaluations and near-gynecological exams their male and liberal counterparts do not.

Having been heavily involved in the planning of a couple of G.O.P. conventions, my view is, we should just scrap 'em. Cancel 'em. Just figure out an appropriate forum for the nominee to give an acceptance speech and be done with it.

You know, Republicans should have a consistent philosophy. And if your philosophy is about limited government and not intruding in people's lives, you shouldn't just inconveniently take a social issue like gay marriage and say, 'Well, unless we think - actually we should be intruding your life.'

George W. Bush was president through some of the darkest days of our history and yet his optimism never waned. He is optimistic by nature, but he also understood the importance of always communicating a sense that things will get better.

Mention the name George W. Bush in mixed company, and you're likely to spark a lot of debate and emotion - hot and cold, good and bad. Not a lot of neutral reaction. He was elected in the most controversial contest in American electoral history and governed during one of the most tumultuous decades.

Contrary to conventional military and game theory, the most effective offense is sometimes a direct attack against your political opponent's greatest strength - not his weaknesses - to place him immediately on the defensive.

Wages, investments, and home values are the three legs of the economic stool for most Americans.

If we cannot come together to pause, to respect our dead and the heroic lives of meaning they led, then ours is truly a civilization lost.

Debt is a drag, a reality you may experience with every credit-card bill you open. But for a corporation or a government, it can be even more of a drag - on economic growth and job creation.

Sometime in the not too distant future, denying gays the right to marry will be viewed as historically corrupt - as corrupt as denying slaves their freedom.

The job of elected leaders is to deliver results that represent the interests of the citizens who placed them in a position of authority with their voice, their vote. But these days, money talks louder.

The initial attraction of a political convention was that often the outcome was not preordained. There was at least some element of surprise. But, now it's like tuning in to a movie where you already know the plot and the ending. It's just not that interesting.

Every day I am being told to sign up for Tumblr, Yammer, Friendfeed, Plaxo, Last.fm, ping.fm or the hot social-media tool du jour that happened to get mentioned on Mashable.com. It is like a social-media arms race. Each one of these new tools is like a cool new night club. Hot today, gone tomorrow, replaced with something else.

As a husband and as a father of girls, I cannot imagine any woman in my family making the sacrifice of sanity required to run for office. The limited reward for public service cannot blunt the cost.

Debates require a lot of hard work and preparation. If you try to wing it, it shows.

Marketers know - no matter how deep the emotional connection or brand loyalty - when a product does not perform, rational thought overtakes emotion, and most consumers make a new choice.

The No Child Left Behind Act will be one of President Bush's enduring legacies. And it was engineered and inaugurated with a truly bipartisan coalition in Congress. Accountability, standards, and truly measuring student performance just makes sense. The only real debate about the law was and is whether or not it was adequately funded.

Ronald Reagan was long thought to be the most conservative of Republicans. And by any standard today he is the most popular Republican in modern history. Yet he raised taxes 11 times, supported a ban on assault rifles and the Brady Bill, which mandated background checks, and established amnesty for 3 million undocumented workers.

Marco Rubio is interesting because he checks so many boxes when you think about what a Republican nominee needs. He brings Florida, he's young, he's Hispanic, the Tea Party likes him. But that said, he's got issues, actually surprisingly, ironically, with Mexican-American voters.

Drone attacks subvert the rule of law - we become judge, jury, and executioner - at the push of a button.

Democracy is but an experiment in the long history of the world.

In politics, not all lies are all lies. And not all truths are complete.

I've spent the better part of my career in politics and public policy working on and fighting for education reforms.

Technology and social media have brought power back to the people.

Elections are about the future. And the GOP will not win a campaign focused on the past.

I've slipped on occasion into the realm of irresponsible invective, but I try to avoid it and generally recant when I fall short. Because name-calling does nothing to improve understanding or move the political debate forward.

Ah, political physics. Someone wins an election and, poof, they are a candidate for vice president. Ridiculous.

Limited government, low taxes, controlled spending and debt, and a restrained regulatory environment make Texas work.

Convention speeches are powerful tools to bend the curve of public opinion. George H. W. Bush's 1988 convention speech is a great example. His son's speech was also quite powerful.

For most of my life, I've considered myself a political centrist.

Wind and solar power are land-intensive, a green sin, but not energy-dense, and affordable only when heavily subsidized. And wind power must be supplemented with hydrocarbons for reliability.

The Republican Party needs to, first of all, quit electing people in primaries that have prehistoric notions about women's issues.

I'll tell you, Liz Cheney is going to be a very good candidate. I worked with her during the Bush campaigns. She's smart, she's focused, she's disciplined - and she's got a great back story. She's got a large family. She's a great mom. And she's a hard worker. I think she's going to be a very effective campaigner.

Presidents should do whatever possible and practical to encourage an environment of cooperation and bipartisanship. And they should maintain a certain level of decorum, diplomacy and decency. But, at the end of the day, presidents get elected to enact change.

Reasonable people can reasonably disagree on policy.

Great presidents, and even those not so great, never complained about the hands they were dealt. Just the opposite. They assumed they were in the big chair to meet big challenges, no matter how difficult.

The GOP cannot expect to win the presidency in the future by simply relying on running up big numbers with white voters.

Presidential primary debates are an important part of our political process. But the media has wrested complete control from the parties and candidates over everything, including the number, the format, the qualifications, and the moderators. And they've become a circus.

Democrats love to criticize Republicans on guns, but they are generally mute when it comes to taking on Hollywood or the gaming industry.

Special interests and opponents have figured out how easy it is to disrupt town halls and get their own message out. The days of the truly free-form town halls may be over.

Temporary tax cuts don't create permanent confidence, nor permanent jobs.

What strikes me when I leave Washington is the extent to which there's a huge disconnect between Washington and the rest of the country. The rest of the country is not hyper partisan.

If you're a Democrat and 'The New York Times' is calling for your head, you know it's time for an exit strategy.

The office of the president is the most powerful in the world. It is also, at times, the most powerless.

CEOs make hard decisions; sometimes, the least worst is the right one.

Middle America believes in fair play, an equal opportunity to succeed or to fail.

People who know Paul Ryan say, 'He will be president one day.'

Mitt Romney is a businessman, a turnaround artist, a CEO. That is who he is. The former governor has experience in the public and private sector.

There are three opportunities that you have during a general election campaign where you can substantially move the needle of public opinion. One, is your convention speech; two, are the base; three, is the selection of your vice president.

Social Security and Medicare are necessary safety nets, but they are nearing insolvency as fewer pay in, more take out, and more take out more.

Life inside the Beltway bubble dulls your thinking.

The Newtown massacre created a tipping point on the gun debate in America.

When you look at the money spent by labor unions for Democrats, it comes as no surprise the Democrats crafted a campaign-finance 'disclosure' bill with the thresholds adjusted to exempt unions.

The world is still changing. Faster than ever. And so should the Republican Party. Or condemn itself to a smaller and smaller base of core supporters and permanent minority status.

Weary of wily politicians who say one thing and do another, voters and advocacy groups insist presidential contenders commit to the cause du jour in writing, but candidates are foolish to comply. Words matter.

I prefer for government to err toward less regulation, lower taxation, and free markets. And I'm a radical free trader.

Limited government, low taxes, controlled spending and debt, and a restrained regulatory environment make Texas work."

Go Hard or Go Home, but never go home hard!

It's just madness. First email. Then instant message. Then MySpace. Then Facebook. Then LinkedIn. Then Twitter. It's not enough anymore to 'Just do it.' Now we have to tell everyone we are doing it, when we are doing it, where we are doing it and why we are doing it.

America's commitment to religious freedom and tolerance should not be conditional.

Voters are looking for credibility and are wary of polish. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter which candidate can more deftly read a teleprompter.

Party switching has all the emotional edges and baggage of divorce.

Who the hell ever dreamed up a tie? It's just such a weird idea, and yet it has been literally hanging around forever as the one constant and boring men's fashion staple.

I think the press has an interest in communicating to its viewers or readers, and their viewers or readers drive profit for those news organizations, so I think those news organizations have a certain bias toward their own readers. Yeah, I think they are a special interest. Of course they are.

Hypocrisy is the scarlet letter in politics.

You know, the Tea Party is a - first of all, it is a significant movement, and I think the media and some pundits have tried to write it off as a bunch of cranks or something. But, in fact, it's really a very legitimate and fairly significant swath of voters out there.

As history has repeatedly proven, one trade tariff begets another, then another - until you've got a full-blown trade war. No one ever wins, and consumers always get screwed.

I took a lot of heat from Republicans when I stepped out of John McCain's campaign after the 2008 primaries. I still supported McCain, and voted for him, but I just didn't want to be the tip of the spear attacking Obama.

A messy participatory process is representative democracy at its best.

To pull off successful attacks in debates, you have to execute with nuance and subtlety. It has to be artful.

Obama killed Osama. Yes, President Barack Obama gets to crow about the killing of Osama bin Laden.

If Democrats start consistently winning Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada, the electoral outlook for Republicans in the future is mighty bleak.

Every president becomes a caricature. The press, partisans, late-night shows, and other arbiters of our culture these days boil down complicated and multi-faceted personalities into one-dimensional punchlines.

Consumers can choose from hundreds of channels today, including dozens for kids. At a time of dwindling resources, we don't need to be subsidizing PBS. It's time for Big Bird the mooch to compete with 'Dora the Explorer' and 'Bob the Builder.'

I don't buy the argument that there can't be a successful independent candidacy for the presidency of the United States. People who say, 'It can't happen,' are many of the same people who said we'd never elect an African American.

Rand Paul comes off like an academic stiff who wants to give us a lecture on American civics.

The Hippocratic Oath says do no harm. It's the Hypocritical Oath that says do no harm to one's political future.

America glories in its tradition of the self-made individual. Political candidates compete to be a friend to entrepreneurs, and policymakers, imagining the next Microsoft or Google, design laws to back the innovator in the garage.

Immigration reform almost happened under President George W. Bush. Twice. And it was comprehensive.

Republicans constantly claim to be the party that defends the Constitution. We have no legitimate right to that claim until we get right on gay rights.

Mitt Romney is a nice guy. But, we know where nice guys finish in politics.

War is often about making the least-worst decision. The same could be said about politics. But the stakes are higher in war, when the commander-in-chief is called upon to defend the nation.

Technology has had more of an impact on the presidency and how the presidency communicates than anything.

One thing is clear: Ron Paul defies labels.

Twitter is not a business. I know its founders would like to think it is. It is, for the most part, a diversion.

Donors, like voters, increasingly expect candidates to exercise fiscal discipline.

I think the press are good people; I think they're educated people.

When elected officials and others contribute to a climate and culture that fosters hyper-partisanship, we've got to blow the whistle.

Immigration is the most explosive issue I've seen in my political career.

I'm saying it loud: I'm a Republican who supports gay rights.

I don't claim any moral or ethical high ground, but I also have chosen not to run for public office. Shouldn't there be a higher standard of conduct for public officials?

George W. Bush is not preoccupied with his legacy - nor with his popularity. He never has been. He has always led based on core conviction and strong principles and has believed that time and distance would allow for context.

Unfortunately, in American politics there are no standards for shame.

When people see political ads, they think someone's lying to them.

I met Barack Obama, I read his book, I like him a great deal. I disagree with him on very fundamental issues.

A competition of the best ideas - that should be what Congress is about.

A Rick Santorum presidency would be very, very dangerous for America.

America as we know it will end unless we end Medicare as we know it.

As a Republican, I never expected to be working with Hillary Clinton.

At some point he has to show that he has a vision of a better way. He can't just say 'The future is bleak, follow me.' Because no one will.

I don't really care how or why Obama got to the right place on gay marriage. I'm just glad he got there.