The biggest challenge I have with Washingtonians is they think Illinois is exclusively a Democratic state.
Most people are Democrats because they hate something; most people are Republicans because they love something.
I am still a Democrat. The main reason is because I don't like the Republican stance on some social values. Not that I disagree with all of them. I just don't think they have a right to impose it upon other people. I've been public about that.
Even if I was a bad right wing guy, to the extent of whether my arguments are right or wrong, they're right or wrong independently if I'm right or left.
I have always voted Labour and I always will. I have got to have one stupid, bovine part of me and that's the part that votes Labour.
Too many Americans live by Republican principles of faith, family, hope and opportunity, but vote for Democrats out of sheer habit.
Even if I was a Republican, George Bush would have pushed me out of that party.
At twenty every one is republican.
In Delaware, citizens still celebrate the day after Election Day as “Return Day.” In some counties, rivals parade together and in others they bury a ceremonial hatchet. Especially in small-town America, the post-campaign reconciliation was as routine as the pre-election combat. These rituals, once widespread, restored civility by shifting everyone’s identity as active partisans to their more transcendent identity as patriotic Americans.
I'm a Christian first, and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second, and don't you ever forget it.
I'm pro-choice, pro-affirmative action, pro-environment and pro-labor. I was either going to be the loneliest Republican in America or I was going to be a happy Democrat.
Undoubtedly, the biggest misconception about me is that I'm some staunch conservative, blind, rightwing hardcore Republican who doesn't want to hear anything from the other side.
I am a partisan and artisan of Europe. But I draw the lessons of my experience in government.
This must be a contingent of Republicans.
When he was booed by the crowd at an NAACP convention for his civil rights positions:
We made, actually, history, because it was the first time ever that doctors could prove that a lifelong Republican has a heart.
Running for office, or suggesting you might, is no longer about being a politician but being an independent opinion or sensibility entrepreneur. You're looking for an audience to identify with you. Rather than trying to convince a majority of the electorate, you're looking to cull your particular following.
I come from a part of the world - raised in a part of the world where you're born a Democrat, baptized a Democrat.
You have the Republican Party, who see themselves in their heart of hearts as being a party of colorblind meritocracy. That's their great belief about themselves. And yet somehow you also have a party where a lot of racial resentment and a camp of even neo-Nazis have set up camp in their party. If you point it out to them, they get mad at you, not at the neo-Nazis.