Jim Bolger Quotes


"And if you're getting a poll coming out month after month saying something and then all of a sudden does an enormous swing in one direction - you are dealing with a more volatile electorate than most people believe they have."
- Jim Bolger
(Related: People, Direction, Saying)

"I mean you really can target your answers to get the instant response and I think that is a very manipulative type of polling. I really have no time for that worm at all."
- Jim Bolger
(Related: Time, Answers)

"I think we have a fascinating new and quite dominant input into politics - and it wont go away. From time to time, people articulate a view that we should ban opinion polls, but that's nonsense."
- Jim Bolger
(Related: Politics, Time, People, Nonsense, Opinion)

"I'm much more attracted personally to governments going their full term. It's very hard to have a fixed term election I know with ah... a parliamentary democracy, but I've always had an instinct to say there should be a fixed term."
- Jim Bolger
(Related: Democracy, Instinct)

"So to that extent that was a very sharp reminder a few months out from the election that we weren't performing in the eyes of the public to the level that they wanted if they were going to re-elect us. So we went out and were much more upfront on issues."
- Jim Bolger
(Related: Eyes, Months, Public)

"Nigel might have an earlier date, but I think it's unprecedented from my memory. So it is a reminder to everybody that the public can move very rapidly on some issues and therefore what looks settled may not be."
- Jim Bolger
(Related: May, Memory, Public)

"Politicians, no matter who they are, shouldn't be able to manipulate the public on a single issue and then call an election at the height of support - that's a little bit of a manipulation of democracy."
- Jim Bolger
(Related: Democracy, Manipulation, Politicians, Public, Support)

"So I think that we're in a very heightened and somewhat unusual period of politics and polling around the countries that New Zealanders take close interest in."
- Jim Bolger
(Related: Politics, Countries, Interest)