John Brabender Quotations

Bob Casey did ads for John Kerry during the presidential campaign. He's considered one of Kerry's biggest fans. Like John Kerry, he's an expert at flip-flopping on the issues.

I guess that's the 'Don't build it, they'll come,' theory, which goes very counter to what most people think.

People are looking for something sort of new and exciting to be part of. It`s like test-driving a car. You don`t want to just go on the lot and drive the car you had before, you want to drive something new.

To me, the logical path then is where could have [Mitt] Romney maybe have won and didn't? And you look at Ohio, Florida. You're still not there. Now you have got to win either Pennsylvania or Michigan. And I think Pennsylvania is probably a little bit more doable than Michigan, but, again, neither one of those states have the Republicans won since 1988.

Pennsylvania might be a parochial state, but it's not a homogeneous state. So, even among just Republican voters, to be able to pull that off, when you have very moderate voters on one side of the state and more conservative in the middle, shows that Donald Trump has very, very broad support.

In fairness to the [Donald] Trump people, if you look at the most recent numbers, they're actually doing well in Ohio, winning, winning in a lot of polls in Florida, and now Pennsylvania and Michigan have both tightened. They're not ahead, but they have tightened. And that's a good trend.

I think what it's to do is to make Donald Trump more likable.

Here's the biggest problem I think Donald Trump has. He's not getting enough votes today of the people who already say they don't like Hillary Clinton.

I agree with Bill [Burton]. I agree with the pastor. I don't think Donald Trump has to be out there making the case against Hillary Clinton. I think people have known her 24 years. How you feel about her, you feel about her.

What they're still unsure about, particularly some moderate Republicans, we know gender there is difference, I think Donald Trump has to seal the deal by letting people feel comfortable to vote for him.

One of the things [Donald] Trump has done is tie into particularly what would be the sons and daughters of Reagan Democrats in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, who are voting for him because they feel both parties left them on the economic battlefield.

[People] feel Washington doesn't understand their lives anymore, and they feel that even though Donald Trump might make a mistake with what he says from time to time, they see that as authenticity and maybe somebody who will truly pay attention to them, because they feel ignored.

In a state like Pennsylvania, the paradox is, to win, you have to get the conservative Democrats in the west, but you still have to do well with the collar-county moderates in the east. [Mitt] Romney did fine with the moderates, but not the conservative Democrats. Trump is doing well with the conservative Democrats. Now Trump has to seal the deal with the moderates in the east.

To some extent it [Mr. Bush's standing in the polls] is affecting the races, but only because the races really haven't begun. At some point these races are going to be about the two candidates in each race. This is ultimately not going to be about Bush helping or hurting someone getting elected, but ultimately will be about the candidates' records.

While Mitt Romney was at Bain Capital, almost one out of every four companies they were involved with went bankrupt or went out of business.