Having served as the majority spokesman for the House Ways and Means Committee after Republicans took the House in 1994, I've seen the promise and the peril of divided government before.
Once the Republicans get rolling, they assume they're going to win everything. They are zealots, and zealots assume the last five percent of whatever their plan is will be taken care of by their own greatness or momentum or divinity.
JFK used to say the bishops and the cardinals were all Republicans, but the nuns were Democrats! I sort of believe that too.
If Republicans are aiming for the heart, for compassion, the last thing they should do is abandon the sanctity of life. Instead, they should tell Americans that they believe in the dignity and value of every human being, from the defenseless unborn child, to the newborn with a disability, to the 90-year-old dealing with dementia.
There are some in black robes sitting on federal benches all across this country. They're Democrats, Republicans, liberals, and even conservatives that pervert the Constitution.
Most Evangelicals claim to be politically non-partisan, and say they only identify with the Republican Party because the Republicans are committed to 'family values.'
Despite our differences, I know that both Republicans and Democrats love America.
At his best, Obama promised to work with Republicans to reduce the deficit in a way that honors both individualism and community.
I never thought that Trump was going to run for president, but I was very firmly on record, including in the book that I wrote before, 'Adios, America,' as saying that Republicans should stop wasting their time with these novelty candidates.
The Republicans are not anti-Latinos. You know, I tell the story all the time that the Tea Party is the one that has actually brought out the Latinos. Look at Idaho. I actually ran against a person in my primary who was born and raised in Idaho who happened to be Caucasian, and they elected the guy who was from Puerto Rico with an accent.
All of these charges by McCarthy were a way of getting the Democrats out of power. The Democrats had controlled the government for 20 years, and the New Deal had helped a lot of people. So Republicans turned instead to saying that the Democrats were soft on communism, which was ridiculous.
The Republicans always do a good job of dividing and conquering. They do a really good job of making black folks, poor white folks, and Hispanics not like each other.
My belief is that despite all the media hoopla, there is much more that unites Republicans than divides us.
For three decades, Democrats and Republicans worked together to make our environment better.
And I want to be able to - you know, make Republicans and Democrats famous for keeping jobs in California.
Political consultants are pugilists, masters in the dark art of negativity. Which is why it's surprising to hear Democrats such as Steve McMahon and Republicans like Rich Galen urging their presidential candidates to be more, well, positive.
I made the argument that every growing demographic in this country - nonwhite voters, younger people - is trending Democratic. It's a ticking time bomb for the GOP. That's why I felt safe in saying that 'Republicans have no hope of making serious inroads into Democratic advantages in 2010 or likely 2012 or 2014 and so on.'
Finally, I want to make the point that we are Republicans. We are the majority. It is going to be a little more difficult because we have to govern and come up with ideas.
Spending an extra dollar on the D.C. public school system isn't spending an extra dollar on education. Spending an extra dollar with the Pentagon doesn't buy you an extra dollar on defense. Republicans need to look skeptically at military spending.
There are fewer and fewer Republicans.
Democrats never agree on anything, that's why they're Democrats. If they agreed with each other, they would be Republicans.
But instead, Democrats are so bent on seeing Republicans as a bunch of angry, right wing, intolerant, unreliable extremists that they have a track record of missing the mood of the country, especially the sentiment of people who don't wake up to 'The New York Times.'
I think part of the problem that the Republicans have is that the base has, in many cases, certain litmus test issues on which they are black and white on their thinking.
House and Senate Republicans are now united in adopting earmark bans. We hope President Obama will follow through on his support for an earmark ban by pressing Democratic leaders to join House and Senate Republicans in taking this critical step to restore public trust.
I am a liberal and always have been - just not the wild-eyed character the Republicans made me out to be.
And I think for some - not all - but for some Democrats, the issue of immigration is better politically if they just leave it the way it is now because they can use it against Republicans.
Let me put it this way: I think Republicans tend to keep the ball in play, Democrats go for broke.
What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republican? One who believes that the democrats would ruin the country.
If we don't like what the Republicans do, we need to get in there and change it.
Republicans are men of narrow vision, who are afraid of the future.
But what is striking about this, in a town that often talks about tax cuts, we could quite easily, Republicans and Democrats working together, do something that everybody in America desires, and that is a simplification of our Tax Code.
If Republicans eliminate Medicare, America will become a country in which you can never retire - and once you physically can no longer work, you are desperately poor until you die.
Republicans are good at standing by their candidate.
I have worked for three decades as a staunch advocate of building a 'big tent' party that includes both pro-choice and pro-life Republicans.
Democrats should be focused on which way we can help the most people in this country, and Republicans should be focused on how to do that in the most fiscally responsible manner possible.
We talked about many issues, like welfare, is it the way of life or hand up? Talked about size of government, how much should it tax families and small businesses? And when we left that lunch, we got in the car and I looked over at Chuck and said, 'I'll be damned. we're Republicans.'
