Dee Dee Myers

"The fight is always the same within the Democratic Party, isn't it? The more things change, the more they stay the same."

-Dee Dee Myers

"Washington is still very much a male-oriented culture. Being from Los Angeles, I think it is less so there - there is less attachment to tradition, perhaps, there is more flexibility, more acceptance of change generally. That is partly because of Hollywood."

-Dee Dee Myers

"When I joined Bill Clinton's start-up presidential campaign in 1991, I was confident that women would play an ever more important role, but I never gave a minute's thought to what would happen if we won. When we did - and I became the first woman to serve as White House press secretary - it changed my life. But it didn't change the world."

-Dee Dee Myers

"Part of Obama's persona is self-reliance. He's calm he's cool he's self-possessed. In many ways, he has tried to define himself in opposition to Clinton's sometimes needy, often undisciplined, emotionalism."

-Dee Dee Myers

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"Obama has made America cool again - and more than that, he's made his own brand arguably the most powerful the world has ever known."

-Dee Dee Myers

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"As women slowly gain power, their values and priorities are reshaping the agenda. A multitude of studies show that when women control the family funds, they generally spend more on health, nutrition, and education - and less on alcohol and cigarettes."

-Dee Dee Myers

educationView Quote

"Study after study confirms that even when you control for variables like profession, education, hours worked, age, marital status, and children, men still are compensated substantially more - even in professions, like nursing, dominated by women. No wonder there's a gender gap."

-Dee Dee Myers

educationView Quote

"That's not to say that women's priorities are better than men's. Rather, when women are empowered, when they can speak from the experience of their own lives, they often address different, previously neglected issues. And families and whole communities benefit."

-Dee Dee Myers

experienceView Quote

"You can't leave out half the world's experience and expect to address all the problems. Women communicate differently and process information differently, which leads them to resolve conflicts differently."

-Dee Dee Myers

experienceView Quote

"I think how pay gets determined is pretty broad - experience, how people look, what they bring to the job. But there's no question women are paid less. Women don't ask."

-Dee Dee Myers

experienceView Quote

"The exposed nature of life in the public square affects leaders' attitudes toward risk - and failure."

-Dee Dee Myers

failureView Quote

"As long as the G.O.P., led by its increasingly visible women, continues to insist that the problem is not their policies but women's failure to understand their own lives and interests, the gender gap won't go away."

-Dee Dee Myers

failureView Quote

"That someone like Obama could be elected president of the United States - with its unrivaled power and prestige - has begun to restore the country's and the world's faith in America as the land of opportunity."

-Dee Dee Myers

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"As women slowly gain power, their values and priorities are reshaping the agenda. A multitude of studies show that when women control the family funds, they generally spend more on health, nutrition, and education - and less on alcohol and cigarettes."

-Dee Dee Myers

"No doubt, the White House thinks the American people know Obama's story. But since the Inauguration, we've seen only the president's present: his perfect family, his Ivy League elegance, his effortless mastery of complex issues. We never see him sweat. And we forget that he ever had to struggle."

-Dee Dee Myers

"The dirty little secret is that the pool man, who's making $30,000 a year, is subsidizing the million-dollar mortgage for the family whose pool he cleans. No wonder people want to get rid of tax breaks for corporate jets."

-Dee Dee Myers

"It never occurred to me that I wouldn't go to college and have a career - as well as a family - of my own. Both my parents, but especially my mother, encouraged me and led me to believe that it was possible."

-Dee Dee Myers

"Barack Obama is the most famous living person in the history of the world."

-Dee Dee Myers

famousView Quote

"I look forward to a time, in the not so distant future, when we no longer look forward to 'firsts' as milestones women have yet to achieve, but we look back on them as historic events that continue to teach and inspire."

-Dee Dee Myers

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"This is a generation weaned on Watergate, and there is no presumption of innocence and no presumption of good intentions. Instead, there is a presumption that, without relentless scrutiny, the government will misbehave."

-Dee Dee Myers

governmentView Quote

"As women slowly gain power, their values and priorities are reshaping the agenda. A multitude of studies show that when women control the family funds, they generally spend more on health, nutrition, and education - and less on alcohol and cigarettes."

-Dee Dee Myers

healthView Quote

"Obama seemed poised to realign American politics after his stunning 2008 victory. But the economy remains worse than even the administration's worst-case scenarios, and the long legislative battles over health care reform, financial services reform and the national debt and deficit have taken their toll. Obama no longer looks invincible."

-Dee Dee Myers

healthView Quote

"Barack Obama is the most famous living person in the history of the world."

-Dee Dee Myers

historyView Quote

"Having a sense of humor has served me more than it has hurt me - just in the sense that it has allowed me to keep my sanity."

-Dee Dee Myers

humorView Quote

"I am endlessly fascinated that playing football is considered a training ground for leadership, but raising children isn't. Hey, it made me a better leader: you have to take a lot of people's needs into account you have to look down the road. Trying to negotiate getting a couple of kids to watch the same TV show requires serious diplomacy."

-Dee Dee Myers

leadershipView Quote

"Not again!' I thought to myself this morning, as news trickled out that John McCain was set to pick Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Not again, because too often women are promoted for the wrong reasons, and then blamed when things don't go right."

-Dee Dee Myers

morningView Quote

"The exposed nature of life in the public square affects leaders' attitudes toward risk - and failure."

-Dee Dee Myers

natureView Quote

"Obama seemed poised to realign American politics after his stunning 2008 victory. But the economy remains worse than even the administration's worst-case scenarios, and the long legislative battles over health care reform, financial services reform and the national debt and deficit have taken their toll. Obama no longer looks invincible."

-Dee Dee Myers

"As women have played an increasingly important role in politics, there is no question that they've brought a different perspective, focusing attention on a broader set of issues and building alliances with other women."

-Dee Dee Myers

"It isn't fate but fecklessness that has shoved Sarah Palin to the sidelines of national politics. The real tragedy is that she's taken a lot of other serious Republican women with her."

-Dee Dee Myers

"When I first started working in politics, as a junior aide on Walter Mondale's 1984 presidential campaign, it never occurred to me that I would one day work in the White House. There were plenty of women among the volunteers who stuffed envelopes and walked precincts. But there were fewer and fewer on each successive level of influence and access."

-Dee Dee Myers

"After I left the White House, I kept a foothold in the business of American politics as a talk-show host, analyst, commentator, speechmaker, and occasional writer. I was no longer a practitioner, but I was still a partisan, a Democrat, a blue-stater through and through."

-Dee Dee Myers

"As women slowly gain power, their values and priorities are reshaping the agenda. A multitude of studies show that when women control the family funds, they generally spend more on health, nutrition, and education - and less on alcohol and cigarettes."

-Dee Dee Myers

"Bill Clinton sitting on Air Force One getting his hair cut while people around the country cooled their heels and waited for him, became a metaphor for a populist president who had gotten drunk with the perks of his own power and was sort of, you know, not sensitive to what people wanted."

-Dee Dee Myers

"Women have a lot of power in private life. There are many men who would say, 'Hey, women already rule my life.' But with women, more is more. The more there are, the more the world gets used to seeing them. We change the culture. We begin to expand options and lead and manage."

-Dee Dee Myers

"Almost all first ladies have had tremendous power on personnel issues, whether the public realized it or not, whether it was Barbara Bush or Nancy Reagan or whoever."

-Dee Dee Myers

"That someone like Obama could be elected president of the United States - with its unrivaled power and prestige - has begun to restore the country's and the world's faith in America as the land of opportunity."

-Dee Dee Myers

"A lot of people over time have had this kind of pattern in their relationship with Bill Clinton. You first meet him and you're overwhelmed by his talent. He's so energetic and articulate and full of ideas and he calls himself a congenital optimist and that optimism is contagious."

-Dee Dee Myers

relationshipView Quote

"My job is to be a spokesman - the spokesman, I suppose - for the President, for the White House, to do the daily briefings, to manage the press corps in terms of travel, day-to-day needs, access, interviews, all those issues."

-Dee Dee Myers

travelView Quote

"If people believe you're on their side, they will trust your decisions."

-Dee Dee Myers

trustView Quote

"While eschewing emotion - and its companion, vulnerability - Obama should be careful not to sacrifice empathy, the 'I feel your pain' connection that sustained Clinton. This connection is the shorthand people use to measure their leaders' intentions. If people believe you're on their side, they will trust your decisions."

-Dee Dee Myers

trustView Quote

"As women slowly gain power, their values and priorities are reshaping the agenda. A multitude of studies show that when women control the family funds, they generally spend more on health, nutrition, and education - and less on alcohol and cigarettes."

-Dee Dee Myers

"Many differences are rooted in biology and reinforced through culture, so it's important to acknowledge that. Because if you say men and women are the same and if male behaviour is the norm, and women are always expected to act like men, we will never be as good at being men as men are."

-Dee Dee Myers

"That's not to say that women's priorities are better than men's. Rather, when women are empowered, when they can speak from the experience of their own lives, they often address different, previously neglected issues. And families and whole communities benefit."

-Dee Dee Myers

"You can't leave out half the world's experience and expect to address all the problems. Women communicate differently and process information differently, which leads them to resolve conflicts differently."

-Dee Dee Myers