Mark Shields Party Quotations

We have weakened the parties and strengthened all the special interests.

The way to solve all the money in politics is not to pretend we can get money out of politics. That will never happen. We have to channel it in ways where we can see it and hold it accountable. And I think the parties are the best vehicle for that.

The Sheldon Adelsons, the Koch brothers, the George Soroses, what we want to try to do is force them into the parties, not so that Kasich or whoever is going to straight to them and trying to kiss up to special interests, but so the parties have the power and they can direct the money.

For many years, we have had these campaign finance reforms, and they have been failures. Money is more coursing through our system than ever before. Incumbents have used the laws to advantage themselves. And one of the reasons I think they have been failures is we have tried to crush down the money in places like the political parties, and it has squished out into opaque super PACs and sort of hidden channels.

Now Republicans are a more interventionist party than they have been at any time since George W. Bush left office.

The Democratic Party is a coalition. Its strength and its weakness is, it's a coalition of interest groups, caucuses. It's a lot less homogeneous than the Republican Party, where people tend to believe the same things and oftentimes look alike.

The Republicans are looking at a country that is going to be a majority minority country in just over a generation. And they are an increasingly white party.

But take the Russia issue. You open up the convention, and you have got a report that the Democratic Party has been hacked by the Russians, e-mails, the e-mails of the Democratic Party, which is a headline and words that you don't want, if you're Hillary Clinton's campaign.And Donald Trump immediately takes the story and basically steps on the advantage he has and say, well, the Russians, who am I to tell [Vladimir] Putin? You know, the Russians ought to come in and continue to hack our - and find out where the e-mails are.

I think the Republican Party is cursed. And it's cursed itself.

I think Democrats ought to be concerned, that the party has become almost prideful about the college-educated vote that it's getting, the support that Hillary Clinton is getting against Donald Trump.