Top 10 Quotes & Sayings by Geoffrey Cowan

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American author Geoffrey Cowan.

Last updated on November 8, 2024.

Geoffrey Cowan is an American lawyer, professor, author, and non-profit executive. He is currently a University Professor at the University of Southern California, where he holds the Annenberg Family Chair in Communication Leadership and directs the Annenberg School's Center on Communication Leadership & Policy. In 2010, Cowan was named president of The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, a position he held until July 2016. In this role, Cowan was commissioned with the task of turning the 200-acre estate of Ambassador Walter Annenberg and his wife Leonore into "a venue for important retreats for top government officials and leaders in the fields of law, education, philanthropy, the arts, culture, science and medicine." Since Sunnylands reopened in 2012, Cowan has helped to arrange a series of meetings and retreats there. In 2013–14, President Barack Obama convened bilateral meetings at Sunnylands with President Xi Jinping of China and with King Abdullah II of Jordan. In 2016, President Obama hosted the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at the site, where they released the Sunnylands Declaration. Prior to his time at Sunnylands, Cowan was appointed by President Bill Clinton as Director of Voice of America.

American - Author | Born: May 8, 1942

Source: Wikipedia

You know, the primary process itself is very confusing. But in the end, I guess I believe what Winston Churchill said, which is that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others. And that phrase of his, which I always have previously thought to be kind of acute, more recently I've thought of it in this way, to say well, you know what, he's also saying it's the worst form of government - except for all of the others.

Geoffrey Cowan

And of course, in the case of Barack Obama, had he not won primaries - and particularly the heavily important caucus in Iowa - if the public hadn't shown that they were prepared to vote for a black president, we wouldn't have one today.

Geoffrey Cowan

And so there are a lot of bad things. And in this campaign, if there's somebody you don't think should be nominated, if you think there's a coarseness to the campaign that's horrible, if you think it's creating voices around the world that seem to speak for America and damages in the world, you may say it's pretty horrible. On the other hand - what's the reverse?

Geoffrey Cowan

Reagan, people claimed, was too old to run for president and to be elected. But he proved himself such a vigorous campaigner in the primary system that he overcame those beliefs.

Geoffrey Cowan

To picture Roosevelt as a man at this time in his life - he felt he was old. He was 53 years old, feeling lonely and irrelevant. And all of a sudden, he takes on this campaign, and it becomes a crusade for popular government. And he ultimately goes on fire in the campaign, but he discovers he's up against all the old machine tactics that he used to use himself, and he has to let the public get involved. And he energizes the public through the most extreme kind of rhetoric, which truly brings him into the streets and onto his side.

Geoffrey Cowan

The reverse is a system in which you basically let people who were leaders in one way or another - people sometimes decried as party bosses, people who are part of special interests make the decision. And I think that's a worse system than the one we have.

Geoffrey Cowan

But he [Franklin Roosevelt] specifically prohibits any black participation from the Deep South, something which just infuriates people who'd been his supporters and who'd believed in him and resides that he is just shockingly abandoned the right of the people to rule. It's a pretty horrible story in that respect.

Geoffrey Cowan

So, in Kennedy's case, he was a Catholic. And people thought after the Al Smith election and so forth that a Catholic couldn't win in the United States. But when he was able to win in West Virginia, he proved that a Catholic could win, even in a heavily Protestant state.

Geoffrey Cowan

When he [Franklin Roosevelt] ultimately does not get the Republican Party nomination and decides to start his new Bull Moose Party, he does, for the first time, let black delegates be part of the party from elsewhere in the country.

Geoffrey Cowan

I think Roosevelt proves himself to be the ultimate political force in this book. He really wasn't for primaries until he realized it was the only way in which he could challenge a sitting president then it becomes his crusade, is to create the primaries and to call for the people to rule.

Geoffrey Cowan

Top 10 Quotes & Sayings by Geoffrey Cowan

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