Political campaigns are designedly made into emotional orgies which endeavor to distract attention from the real issues involved, and they actually paralyze what slight powers of cerebration man can normally muster. – James Harvey Robinson, The Human Comedy, 1937

We would all like to vote for the best man but he is never a candidate. – Frank McKinney "Kin" Hubbard

The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal – that you can gather votes like box tops – is… the ultimate indignity to the democratic process. – Adlai Stevenson, speech, Democratic National Convention, 18 August 1956