Latest William Kristol Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• I like [ Rick] Santorum personally and respect him, but you wouldn't say that he was really that strong of an opponent. At the end of the day it wasn't like [Ronald] Reagan running against [George] Bush, or [George W.] Bush against [John] McCain, even. It's sort of surprising that Romney had as much trouble as he did, and I think it shows a weakness in appeal to those voters.

  William Kristol

  Running, Strong, Thinking

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• If you look at the polls - the conservatives are fine.I think there will be a fair amount of enthusiasm, or at least motivation. They very much want to remove President [Barack] Obama.

  William Kristol

  Motivation, Thinking, President

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• At the end of the day,[Mitt] Romney was pro-life, but [Rick] Santorum was more fervently pro-life, and had been for longer. They're all going to repeal Obamacare, but Romney has once endorsed something like it. In the old days, there really were differences on fundamental issues, even on foreign policy, [for which] [Newt] Gingrich, Romney, and Santorum were pretty similar.

  William Kristol

  Obamacare, Differences, Issues

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• That's always been the case in America; there's been a big spectrum in how much people are interested in American politics.

  William Kristol

  America, People, Bigs

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• I think it's fine that there are five million people who are watching [politics on TV], and obviously I'm happy they are since they're on the air, and there are a couple hundred thousand people reading The Weekly Standard online, and that's great too, but most Americans aren't engaged that intensely, and are much less partisan.

  William Kristol

  Couple, Reading, Thinking

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• Fox gets two million viewers a night, and MSNBC gets one. It's four million people, five million people, and 130 million people are going to vote. There are an awful lot of voters, and an awful lot of politically engaged, intelligent people who are not hanging on whatever happens on Bill O'Reilly or Rachel Maddow.

  William Kristol

  Intelligent, Night, Two

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• Some journalists just get too wrapped up in daily news cycles and tempests in a teapot that are not going to make any difference. As someone who is older and has been through a few election cycles, maybe this is just being an old fogey, but I think I know what's going to really matter and what's not.

  William Kristol

  Thinking, Differences, News

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• Frankly, if you're 26 years old and there's a war on women or there's not a war on women, you can get all wrapped up in it and get lots of traffic on your website and get into exchanges and scream and yell about it on MSNBC or Fox, and a week later no one can remember what that was about.

  William Kristol

  War, Years, Foxes

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• I think the whole dynamic is different. Whereas in [Barack] Obama's case, even though there was no incumbent, he was able to run against eight years of Bush-Cheney and a Republican Congress, and everyone was tired of everything. He was able to benefit from that.

  William Kristol

  Running, Tired, Thinking

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• I don't think [Mitt] Romney can sit there and wait to win because perhaps people are disappointed with President [Barack] Obama.

  William Kristol

  Winning, Thinking, People

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• In any case, open-seat presidential elections like 2008 just are different in character from incumbent reelects, and I think that's the most important thing about this election - is that once there's an incumbent running for reelection, most of the debate is about, "Has he [Barack Obama] done a good job?" Most of the judgment is, "Do you want to keep him or do you want to replace him?" Now, the opponent has to also be acceptable and has to make his own case.

  William Kristol

  Running, Jobs, Character

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• Obviously I think politics is interesting and important and educational.

  William Kristol

  Educational, Thinking, Interesting

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• I think reading intelligent expressions of different points of view is a good thing, and there is a way in which being in academia in a classroom at the University probably gives you, can give you an academic view of things, and reading actual real time debates about what should we do in Syria or the Buffett rule, budget issues...gives you a kind of sense that's hard to get in a classroom.

  William Kristol

  Real, Reading, Intelligent

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• I'm happy to have interns at The Weekly Standard and happy to have readers of The Weekly Standard, but if you all tell me that you were busy reading Plato and [Lev] Tolstoy and playing violin in the orchestra, I'd say that was great. I wouldn't tell you to take time out from that to get involved in political journalism.

  William Kristol

  Plato, Reading, Political

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• There's a sort of romanticizing of the past. When you actually think about the past, you know it's a little different.

  William Kristol

  Past, Thinking, Different

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• For all the talk about the bitterness and the partisanship in American politics, is it really that bitter and partisan? Think of American history. Think of Joseph McCarthy. Think of the New Left. Think of [George] McGovern. Think of [Ronald] Reagan. Think of George Wallace. We've had an awful lot of real extremism on both wings.

  William Kristol

  Real, Thinking, Wings

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• I don't really believe that people read just the stuff they agree with.

  William Kristol

  Believe, People, Stuff

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• I still would say generally that more people have access [to] and take advantage of more diversity of opinion than was once .

  William Kristol

  People, Diversity, Opinion

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• The media claimed to be non-partisan, centrist. It's not been that way for a lot of history.

  William Kristol

  Media, Way, Partisans

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• People read the Tribune or the Sun-Times, you know, way back when the Tribune was a right-wing paper.It's always been somewhat that way. We take 10, 20 years in the 50s and 60s as kind of the norm, when there was this sort of bi-partisan parent consensus.

  William Kristol

  Years, Wings, People

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• My sense from talking to college students is that you have a healthier sense of the diversity of opinions or arguments or analysis about issues. In our day it was just sort of, "Well gee, this is what the news says so that's the way it is." It didn't really get challenged that much.

  William Kristol

  College, Talking, Issues

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• You all would be really shocked, if you were dropped back down into when I went to college, by the narrowness of the opinions you could get just by reading newspapers and magazines and watching TV.

  William Kristol

  Reading, College, Watching Tv

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• I am on the whole a defender of the current, despite being a conservative. I mean, I think things are better than when I was younger.

  William Kristol

  Mean, Thinking, Conservative

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• Going from three TV channels to broadcast TV to cable to talk radio; obviously the online explosion has changed things.

  William Kristol

  Three, Radio, Tvs

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

• Maybe one thing that has happened is that the claims of non-partisanship of the mainstream media have been a little bit exploded. Mostly I'd say what, if anything has caused the change, are just the obvious technological changes - proliferation of easier access to getting your opinions out and the proliferation of media.

  William Kristol

  Media, Technological Change, What If

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com