The person you're choosing is going to be 90 feet down the hall for four years. That's a pretty intimate and close relationship, and it better be somebody you're comfortable with, you like, you trust, you look forward to seeing, not someone you're coming up with creative ideas on how to avoid.
Mark ShieldsThe organizing principle of the United States defensive foreign policy had been opposition to the Soviet Union. There is no more Soviet Union.
Mark ShieldsThe Tea Party thing is only apt in some ways. The activism in the town halls, that looks superficially like it. But what the Tea Party did was, they went after the party, the Republican Party, as their vehicle. And parties is how you change history.
Mark Shields90 percent of American schoolchildren are in public schools. And the emphasis on private schools and charter schools and parochial schools is not unimportant.
Mark ShieldsThere is no question that, in 1980, Ronald Reagan had been portrayed as a war-monger, somebody who couldn't do anything off a script. And the one debate with President Jimmy Carter, he stood toe-to-toe and reassured people that he wasn't bound and determined to start World War III on the spot and could make a coherent statement.
Mark ShieldsFrom 1976, Judy to 1996, we had six presidential elections. And it was run under the Campaign Finance Reform Act of 1974. In all six of them, every candidate agreed to limits of what he could collect in contributions and what he could spend in seeking a nomination. And they all abided by it.
Mark Shields