Political Quotes

“Thank you. This chart really brings home the issue what we are faced with. In 1960, the total amount of money spent in the United States of America on all Federal, State and local campaigns--$175 million. Watch it grow. Watch it grow dynamically until we get to $4 billion, the estimate of the amount spent in 1996 on all political campaigns. But look what is happening to the voters. When we are spending $175 million, 63 percent of the voters turned out. As we get up to $4 billion in spending, we are down to 49% of the voters showing up for the Presidential election year. If you were running a company and you said to your marketing division, ``I want you to double the advertising budget and sell more of our product,'' and they come back in the next quarter and said, ``We doubled the advertising budget and we're selling fewer products,'' you would have to reach one of two conclusions: something was wrong with your advertising organization or something is wrong with your product. In politics there is something wrong with both. People are sick of our advertising. It is too negative. It is too nasty. These drive-by shooting ads that we have, 30-second ads by issue groups you never heard of, at the last minute of a campaign, and candidates, myself included, spending a lot of time groveling and begging for money, that does not help the process. It does not help our image. It does not encourage people to get involved.”