A Quote by Henry Kissinger
Leaders are responsible not for running public opinion polls but for the consequences of their actions.
Quote Topics
Quote Author
Related Quotes
The temptation to be popular may prioritize public opinion above the word of God. Political campaigns and marketing strategies widely employ public opinion polls to shape their plans. Results of those polls are informative. But they could hardly be used as grounds to justify disobedience to God’s commandments!
I have looked at public opinion polls in France in the late 1940s and early 1950s during the height of Marshall Plan aid. They had a very negative attitude towards the United States then. There were negative attitudes towards the United States because of Vietnam. There were negative attitudes about the United States when Reagan wanted to deploy intermediate range ballistic missiles. I don't think the president should base his foreign policy on American public opinion polls, let alone foreign public opinion polls.
Leaders do not sway with the polls. Instead, they sway the polls through their own words and actions.
The polls are just being used as another tool of voter suppression. The polls are an attempt to not reflect public opinion, but to shape it. Yours. They want to depress the heck out of you.
The polls are just being used as another tool of voter suppression. The polls are an attempt to not reflect public opinion, but to shape it. Yours. They want to depress the heck out of you...
I think polling is important because it gives a voice to the people. It gives a quantitative, independent assessment of what the public feels as opposed to what experts or pundits think the public feels. So often it provides a quick corrective on what's thought to be the conventional wisdom about public opinion. There are any number of examples that I could give you about how wrong the experts are here in Washington, in New York and elsewhere about public opinion that are revealed by public opinion polls.
American public opinion, as you can see in the polls, radically changed from being against airstrikes to being heavily in favor that [President Obama] decided to do airstrikes. This is a classic example of leading from behind where he waits for public opinion. And now it's the public who's demanding he do something.
Take a look at public opinion. About 70 percent of the population, in the polls, said the [Vietnam ] war was fundamentally wrong and immoral, not a mistake. And that attitude lasted as long as polls were taken in the early '80s.
The court follows elite opinion, not public opinion. And Democratic leaders in Congress and Republican leaders in Congress follow elite opinion as well. It's what I've called "the Washington cartel." It's career politicians in both parties. It is lobbyists and giant corporations.
The most absurd public opinion polls are those on taxes. Now, if there is one thing we know about taxes, it is that people do not want to pay them. If they wanted to pay them, there would be no need for taxes. People would gladly figure out how much of their money that the government deserves and send it in. And yet we routinely hear about opinion polls that reveal that the public likes the tax level as it is and might even like it higher. Next they will tell us that the public thinks the crime rate is too low, or that the American people would really like to be in more auto accidents.
Actions have consequences... first rule of life. And the second rule is this - you are the only one responsible for your own actions.
You are responsible for the predictable consequences of your actions.
You see, Mr. President - real leaders don't follow polls. Real leaders change polls.
Journalists should denounce government by public opinion polls.
I think you can not be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.
In the 2012 election, the polls that had made Mitt Romney so confident that he was going to win were his own internal polls, based on models that failed to accurately estimate voter turnout. But the public polls, especially statewide polls, painted a fairly accurate picture of how the electoral college might go.
Related Authors
Angela Merkel Quotes
German
Statesman
Bashar al-Assad Quotes
Syrian
Statesman
Colin Powell Quotes
American
Statesman
Condoleezza Rice Quotes
American
Statesman
Edmund Burke Quotes
Irish
Statesman
Fidel Castro Quotes
Cuban
Statesman
Indira Gandhi Quotes
Indian
Statesman
Kofi Annan Quotes
Ghanaian
Statesman
Lucius Annaeus Seneca Quotes
Roman
Statesman
Madeleine Albright Quotes
American
Statesman
Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes
Roman
Statesman
Napoleon Bonaparte Quotes
French
Statesman
Nelson Mandela Quotes
South African
Statesman
Thabo Mbeki Quotes
South African
Statesman
Tony Blair Quotes
English
Statesman
Winston Churchill Quotes
British
Statesman