Arthur J. Finkelstein - Quotes

Quotes

• "Stupid people say stupid things." (Hebrew language paper Maariv in 1999)
• "The political center has disappeared, and the Republican Party has become the party of the Christian right more so than in any other period in modern history... Bush's victory not only establishes the power of the American Christian Right in this candidacy, but in fact established its power to elect the next Republican president." (Maariv, 11/04)
• "From now on, anyone who belongs to the Republican Party will automatically find himself in the same group as the opponents of abortion, and anyone who supports abortion will automatically be labeled a Democrat." (Maariv, 11/04)
• "She will put off Democrats from the center. In terms of the Republicans, Hillary Clinton is a wonderful candidate for the presidency." (Maariv, 11/04)
• "When you allow people to choose between the corrupt and the stupid, they will go for the corrupt." (Said in reference to a 2003 Israeli campaign)
• Speaking to GOP congressional hopefuls in 1978: "If any of you do get elected, and chances are 19-to-1 you won't ... don't run your own campaign; don't let your spouse do it; and don't listen to the nice lady who praises the brilliance of your speech—she probably was the only one in the audience who thought so." He said Proposition 13 (just passed in California) shouldn't be inter-preted as "evidence people want services cut. They want taxes cut," and voters aren't sophisticated enough to understand that one leads to the other.
• He cited the 1965 New York mayoral campaign of John Lindsay, elected because "he promised to cut the budget in half and double the services. Four years later, when it was apparent that he had doubled the budget and cut services; Lindsay said, 'Yes, I made a mistake,' but he was re-elected when he promised to help end the Vietnam War."