If he (Bush) comes up with a winnable conservative nominee, even if that person faces a fight in Congress, he will have drawn his people back to him. |
If someone within your family is doing something that's certainly wrong, if not illegal, you have a duty to say, That's not us. That's what people are saying. |
If they want the conservatives to play on their team, they have to treat them like members of the team rather than outsiders. |
It is the most politically volatile issue out there. What Bush has done is not really change the program. He's always had border control in it. But now he has put border security first, rather than as an afterthought. And I think that makes it more salable. |
Most conservatives have been historically strong defense people, but have been reluctant to embrace the idea that America can dictate the form of government to other states and other peoples. |
No one would deny the government the power it needs to protect us all. But when that power poses a threat to the basic rights that make our nation unique, its exercise must be carefully monitored by Congress and the courts. |
The activist left is running this like their Spanish Civil War, dusting off all their weapons, seeing what works, taking the measure of the new administration, taking the measure of the Democrats in the Senate. . . . And what we are trying to do is see that they get the message very quickly that they are not running on a clear field. I think they are warming up for the Supreme Court, so it becomes very necessary [to resist them] for that reason. |
The electorate on which they depend is getting more and more frustrated. If turnout drops 1.5 percent, that's a big deal. |
The flow of blood has been stanched. |
The one big strategic error -- which was a political error and an economic error of grand proportions -- was the prescription drug bill. |
The policies that are being pursued here are not only economically destructive, they're politically destructive, and ultimately there's going to be a political as well as an economic price paid by the folks who are engaged in this activity. |
Their argument is extremely dangerous in the long term because it can be used to justify all kinds of things that I'm sure neither the president nor the attorney general has thought about. ...The American system was set up on the assumption that you can't rely on the good will of people with power. |
There would be anger in the Republican base and among conservatives because they would think that the leadership, looking at polls or making a deal, had short-circuited a process that they take very seriously. |
There would be anger in the Republican base and among conservatives because they would think that the leadership, looking at polls or making a deal, had short-circuited a process that they take very seriously. |
They like Bush. But they are frustrated and disappointed with some things the administration has done. And the frustration is deep because government spending and growth of government are at the core of beliefs of many people here. |