Word.ws English Dictionary

all politics is local

all politics is local proverb: ultimately, constituents and voters are concerned most about issues that affect their personal lives and home communities, and they vote accordingly.

Proverb

all politics is local

  1. (US) Ultimately, constituents and voters are concerned most about issues that affect their personal lives and home communities, and they vote accordingly.
    • "The campaign never ends," said the 44-year-old Congressman. . . . "I win by reaching out to people one by one, through relentless retail politics." In other words, Mr. Bacchus is betting his congressional career on the adage that all politics is local.1993 December 7, Clifford Krauss, “On Congress's Home Front, Faith That All Politics Is Indeed Local”, in New York Times, retrieved 17 Aug 2015
    • [A]ll politics is local and Kerry North is more local than most. In the electorate, the view is that Mr Ferris got in because . . . he has been an assiduous local councillor and constituency worker, painstakingly building up a formidable Sinn Fein machine that has delivered on local issues.2002 May 20, David McKittrick (Ireland Correspondent), "Kerry kicks out former party leader and replaces him with former gun-runner," Independent (UK) (retrieved 17 Aug 2015)

Forms of all politics is local

alternative formall politics are local

Origin of all politics is local

Variously attributed to Associated Press Washington bureau chief Byron Price, said to have first used this term in 1932, and to Chicago writer Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936). Derivative of British English professor, Dr. Samuel Johnson's 18th Century aphorism, "All virtue is local".

Questions about all politics is local

What does all politics is local mean?
All politics is local means ultimately, constituents and voters are concerned most about issues that affect their personal lives and home communities, and they vote accordingly.
What part of speech is all politics is local?
All politics is local is a proverb.

Words near all politics is local in the dictionary

  1. all over with
  2. all perfect
  3. all perfects
  4. all points of the compass
  5. all politics are local
  6. all politics is local
  7. all publicity is good publicity
  8. all quiet on the Western Front
  9. all retch and no vomit
  10. all right
  11. all rightie

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: all politics is local (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “all politics is local.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/all_politics_is_local. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.