John B. Anderson

“Profile at No Holding Back”

“Biographical profile at US Congress”

“[Anderson] is not likely to win, but in a race with such doddering bumblers as Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, it is best to not rule anything out.”

“I have never interviewed a politician so open to argument and so unafraid of being done in by a reporter.”

“Put me down as a believer. John Anderson is the most impressive candidate in the presidential field. . . Reporters are not used to politicians who look you directly in the eye and tell you exactly what they believe. . . He is giving up a safe congressional seat after twenty years. I admire him for not wanting to spend the rest of his life posturing and pretending to leadership. He decided to try to lead.”

“Mr. Anderson is seen as one of those rare politicians whose political standards and sense of values seem more important to him than winning the next election. . . looking more and more like the quintessential man of principle.”

“A first class congressman, a smart man with interesting ideas, and a figure of some moment in the House.”

“Rep. John Anderson, the Illinois Republican, has so far shown himself to be the candidate most qualified to be president.”

“Anderson, alone in the Republican field, has been waging a campaign focused on the issues that are bedeviling America. And he has been making uncommonly good sense. The remarkable thing about him is that he combines two qualities this country very much needs today: a conservative approach to fiscal, tax, and business matters, and a tough but sane attitude toward foreign affairs.”

“Within the fraternity of professional public opinion pollsters, Rep. John B. Anderson’s independent presidential campaign is regarded today as a serious challenge that could result in Anderson’s election to the White House next November.”

“He's the smartest guy in Congress, but he insists on voting his conscience instead of party.”

“There is a thread that runs through American presidential politics. It is an urge to find, especially in difficult times, a candidate who is his own man, whose concerns are larger than his party’s, who is a rational moderate in pursuit of what is best for the whole country. In the spring of 1980, John Bayard Anderson of Rockford, Illinois seemed to have seized that thread. He was widely perceived to be good, decent, honest, less partisan, and more intelligent and experienced than the rest of the field.”

“Anderson not only is eloquent, he is forthright to the point of bluntness. He has disdained feeding Pablum to the populace. He has pinpointed the nation’s major problems and offered reasonable, if not always palatable, solutions to them.”

“What he did was prove, again, that here is a remarkable candidate of courage and integrity, one who refuses to shape his plans and his principles to conform to this or that pressure group. Instead, he values the welfare of all Americans.”

“We would commend any voter who, from principle, casts a ballot for him. The Illinois congressman has demonstrated that directness wins respect from voters, even when they disagree with what they hear.”

“Overnight, Anderson has become a hero, not only to the civil rights forces, but also to Republican liberals and moderates who hanker for an attractive new face and a voice of eloquence to assume the lead in offering new solutions to the nation’s great domestic crises.”

“Anderson accomplished one of the rarest deeds in Congress . . . [he] actually persuaded some of his Republican colleagues to switch at the last minute from opposition to support of the bill.”

“I had no great sense of failure. I didn’t come out of the campaign with the sense that I’d thrown my career away or thrown my life away on what was a fruitless, feckless endeavor. I felt that I had made my mark on the pages of history and laid down some markers for others possibly to follow.”

“[My position] is not designed to win votes. It is designed to address itself to what I think is a problem of crisis proportions. I believe that when you are facing that kind of emergency, you have to be willing to prescribe some pretty tough action. I think the American people are ready for some straight answers. . . When you are confronted with a genuine emergency, then I think you have to look at the interest of the country first.”

“The time has come to stop telling the American people only what they want them to hear, and start talking frankly about the sacrifices we must all make.”