Leadership Quote by Don Nickles

Nickles’ line is less a character reference for CEOs than a piece of political choreography: a preemptive defense against the anti-corporate mood that periodically surges through Washington. By opening with “I think,” he frames the claim as reasonable personal judgment rather than ideology, inviting agreement from moderates who may distrust both boardrooms and populist crusades. The triple stack “good honorable honest” is deliberate overkill. It doesn’t add evidence; it adds insulation. If you oppose his policy position (likely on regulation, taxes, liability, or labor rules), you can be cast as someone who assumes bad faith in “most” executives.

The subtext is also about widening the frame. Corporate power is hard to justify in abstract terms like “markets” or “efficiency,” especially after scandals or layoffs. So Nickles humanizes the institution through moral adjectives and a gender-inclusive “men and women,” converting structural critique into something that sounds like a personal insult. It nudges the listener away from questions of incentives, accountability, and externalities and toward etiquette: don’t smear people who “do good work.”

Context matters because Nickles, a long-serving Republican senator from Oklahoma, operated in an era when business-friendly policy was central to the party’s coalition and campaign finance realities. The line reads as an attempt to keep the conversation on trust and merit rather than on power. Its rhetorical move is simple: if the players are presumed honorable, the system they benefit from starts to look like common sense.