United States Presidential Candidates 1976

"I believe that international terrorism is a modern form of warfare against liberal democracies. I believe that the ultimate but seldom stated goal of these terrorists is to destroy the very fabric of democracy. I believe that it is both wrong and foolhardy for any democratic state to consider international terrorism to be 'someone else's' problem.... Liberal democracies must acknowledge that international terrorism is a 'collective problem.'"

"We all want to put the brakes on the arms race...we all want to achieve arms control...but to those who say we must take risks for peace by cutting the meat from our military muscle, I say you are unwittingly risking war."

"When we have something we feel strongly about — and in this case it is civil liberties and freedom and what this nation was founded upon, that we should do something to implement international law — and it is international law now, the right to leave a country freely and return freely — that we should put that issue of principle on the table knowing that the Russians are not going to agree to it."

"In matters of national security, the best politics is no politics."

"The danger of Americans being killed, the danger of divisiveness that would accrue from those developments ... are all too real. A superpower should not play that kind of role in a cauldron of trouble, because sooner or later we are going to get hurt."

"At the same time, Kissinger, Carter and détente were condemned as weakening the West by a group of conservative Democrats led by Henry (Scoop) Jackson, a critic of SALT, as well as by key Republicans who were influential in the Ford administration (1974–7), notably his Chief of Staff, Richard (Dick) Cheney, and the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. They drew on advice from commentators such as Richard Perle, Richard Pipes and Paul Wolfowitz who warned about Soviet intentions. The continuity of this group, through 1990s’ opposition to Clintonian liberal internationalism, to the neo-conservative activism of the early 2000s, especially against Iraq, is notable."

"Senator Henry Jackson, a wise and revered statesman and one who probably understood the Soviets as well as any American in history, warned us, "the greatest threat the United States now faces is posed by the Soviet Union." But Senator Jackson said, "If America maintains a strong deterrent—and only if it does—this nation will continue to be a leader in the crucial quest for enduring peace among nations." The late Senator made those statements in July on the Senate floor, speaking in behalf of the MX missile program he considered vital to restore America's strategic parity with the Soviets."

"Jerry has given hypocrisy a bad name."

"I don't like to talk about Jerry Brown. I don't like him."

"I do not believe he believes what he is saying."

"He's very ambitious and will do anything to be in power."

"He's totally into power."

"I don't think Jerry Brown is committed to anything but Jerry Brown."

"Jerry has no political or ideological anchor."

"[Jerry Brown] is the most self-serving, inept politician that I have ever met in my 35 years in politics."

"Jerry is perceived by most legislators as very selfish."

"Government, no less than the individual, must live within limits. It is time to bring our accounts into balance. Government, as exemplar and teacher, must manifest a self-discipline that spreads across the other institutions in our society, so that we can begin to work for the future, not just consume the present."

"Many regulations primarily protect the past, prop up privilege or prevent sensible economic choices."

"That man [Jerry] is like 500 pounds of Jello."

"When Proposition 13 passed overwhelmingly in California, Californians were very pleased. And they felt no pinch at all, not knowing that, thanks to Jerry Brown, there was an incredible surplus in the coffers. So life went on as it always had, with the sunshine, and orange trees, and smog-and everything sort of went on. And about a year ago, the truth had to be revealed, that the surplus had been used up. And now the cuts are taking place in services that people took for granted. That's the California way of life. And people are having to come to grips with what that means for the handicapped, the aged, the poor, the children, and the minorities."

"I listened, and I've come to the conclusion I just don't trust him."

"Oftentimes Jerry will run for an office and not want to do the things that are part of that office."

"I don't know who Jerry Brown is anymore. There's been so many evolvements."

"Admit it-the world is mighty wacky. Dan Quayle is a heartbeat away from bravely leading us into the New World Order. Our intelligentsia are running around declaring that we have reached both the End of History and the apex of political evolution-we're the kings of the global jungle. At the same time, sensing new opportunities, the forces of reptilian nationalism-from Pat Robertson to militant mullahs, from David Duke to the ancient reactionary movements of Eastern Europe-are crawling out from under their rocks, getting facelifts, and learning how to use teleprompters and Stinger missiles. Meanwhile, back in the cradle of democracy, the "opposition" response to all this is to offer a choice between Jerry Brown and None of the Above."

"There's nothing wrong with being an anarchist."

"He is by an order of magnitude the most self-absorbed politician I have ever dealt with."

"I don't think you can take much of what he says seriously."

"The Democrats are a big tent with many different points of view. Having said all of that, I think there will be a tendency to passing too many laws and spend too much money. And I would say that the [new] governor is going to have to correct that. But he wouldn’t be able to correct it all because in order to govern he’s got to please some of these groups enough of the time to still be viable as a political leader."

"I've been in office and I've been out of office. And if I were to choose, I'd rather be in office."

"I'd shrink government in a minute, if I could shrink GM, Bank of America, and all these immoral corporations that operate by an undemocratic code, with no soul and no conscience."

"Jerry Brown was just a nut."

"We are in a degenerate state of self-government. In fact, even to use the words self-government, is not only an exaggeration, it's a lie. It's a big lie!"

"[Jerry Brown is] a desperate man."

"The governor is the worst administrator ever to come down the pike."

"The idea that government has some omnipotence or omniscience is completely absurd and counter to all the thinking that went into our country."

"There is an overblown rhetoric and overblown expectation that if there is a problem there must be program to solve it."

"The mistrust of our public institutions and mere anxiety about our future economy are more the order than the exception. Three quarters of the people do not trust their government. More than half of the eligible citizens in California again decided not to vote in the last election. Why? Why the anti-government mood? I asked this same question four years ago and now I believe I understand. Simply put, the citizens are revolting against a decade of political leaders who righteously spoke against inflation and excessive government spending but who in practice pursued the opposite course."

"In this decade government at all levels has increased spending faster than the true rate of economic growth… The cure for inflation has been administered with a vengeance. Yet most people feel worse, not better, about their government benefactor. The elderly find their fixed income eroding in half; those about to retire fear their future pensions will never keep pace. Ten million California workers see their wages rise but not as fast as prices. Those on welfare obtain larger grants but find more expensive groceries."

"The U.S. incarceration binge is not tied to crime. It's a strategy to control the surplus population in a capitalist system that is breaking down."

"Let's turn inflation over to the post office. That'll slow it down."

"Everything has been said but not everyone has said it."

"The voters have spoken — the bastards."

"Presidential ambition is a disease which can only be cured by embalming fluid."

"During her failed presidential bid, Mrs. Chisholm went to the hospital to visit George C. Wallace, her rival candidate and ideological opposite, after he had been shot -- an act that appalled her followers. "He said, 'What are your people going to say?' I said: 'I know what they're going to say. But I wouldn't want what happened to you to happen to anyone.' He cried and cried," she recalled."

"Shooting segregationist dinosaurs wasn't as bad as harming mainstream politicians."

""Governor Wallace" is a song that came out of the response to the violence against nonviolent marches on the Pettus Bridge. And it’s addressed to Governor Wallace. It says, “You cannot put all of us, who are going to pour into Alabama, in jail. You cannot jail us all.”"

"But no one who knew Wallace well ever took seriously his earnest profession, uttered a thousand times after 1963, that he [had been] a segregationist, not a racist..."

"Everyone overlooks the impact on the black population of our country of the present Administration, and that is very sinister. It's an insult to every black American that the President of the United States should be in competition with the governor of Alabama for votes. The civil rights laws? Bullshit."

"Wallace, like most white southerners of his generation, genuinely believed blacks to be a separate, inferior race."

"A decade later, Alabama governor George Wallace’s defiant segregationist stance vaulted him to national prominence, leading to surprisingly vigorous bids for the presidency in 1968 and 1972. Wallace engaged in what journalist Arthur Hadley called the “old and honorable American tradition of hate the powerful.” He was, Hadley wrote, a master at exploiting “plain old American rage.” Wallace often encouraged violence and displayed a casual disregard for constitutional norms, declaring: "There is one thing more powerful than the Constitution….That’s the will of the people. What is a Constitution anyway? They’re the products of the people, the people are the first source of power, and the people can abolish a Constitution if they want to." Wallace’s message, which mixed racism with populist appeals to working-class whites’ sense of victimhood and economic anger, helped him make inroads into the Democrats’ traditional blue-collar base. Polls showed that roughly 40 percent of Americans approved of Wallace in his third-party run in 1968, and in 1972 he shocked the establishment by emerging as a serious contender in the Democratic primaries. When Wallace’s campaign was derailed by an assassination attempt in May 1972, he was leading George McGovern by more than a million votes in the primaries."