John Boehner was and is an unprincipled ward-heeler who simply couldn't weather the transition of the Republican Party from a corporatist party with a sizable conservative base to a purely conservative party.
I also think the party needs to work on a couple different fronts. There are so many fault lines within the party: conservative vs. moderate, the more fiscally minded Republicans vs. the more socially minded Republicans, the Old Guard - the sort of Newt Gingrich-Karl Rove Republican - vs. the New Guard - the Michael Steele-Sarah Palin sort of emerging sect of the party. And the party has to decide what direction it's going to go in.
I've been involved in the Conservative party for two decades. I've fought for the party. I have an unusual background - I'm not your typical Tory recruit. I've spent a long time evangelising about why people should look at the Conservative party seriously.
Some people thinks that I'm the Antichrist, which would be a really good disguise for the Antichrist. You'd never see a pudgy, out-of-shape guy, 5 o'clock in the afternoon, being the Antichrist, would you?
The Conservative party, the modern Conservative party, is on the side of people who want to work hard and get on.
I will tell you my position now, as somebody who is ardently against [Donald Trump], as the sort of standard-bearer of the Republican Party and as sort of an impostor in the conservative movement, is, frankly, cautiously optimistic.
The Conservative party is at its strongest when it's not the party that says there is no role for government and the state should just get out of the way. That is not a strand of Conservative thinking that, by itself, is enough.
I want you to hear me tonight, I am not saying that President Obama is the Antichrist. I am not saying that at all. One reason I know he's not the Antichrist is the Antichrist is going to have much higher poll numbers when he comes.
If the Conservative party hasn't got room for Ken Clarke and Philip Hammond and 19 others, there is also a message there to millions of people who vote Conservative, that it's not a party for them. If you go down a divisive route, the scars will be very deep.
Even before winning its majority, Harper's Republican-styl e Conservative party - well to the right Canada's traditional Progressive Conservative Party - managed to win minority governments with less than 40 per cent of the popular vote.
I want to lead the Progressive Conservative Party, a party that will promote true conservative values and principles. I can tell you right now, I am not the merger candidate. I am not interested in institutional marriages with other parties.
Before Donald Trump, the Republican Party was a majority conservative party with a white nationalist fringe. Now it's a white nationalist party with a conservative fringe.
Conservative thinking is a very important part of Republican Party and the Republican Party is very important to the conservative movement. Since the 1960's, the polarization of the two parties and their alignment with essentially liberal and progressive and conservative thinking respectively is one of the big changes and it's made it really hard to separate those two out and so party and ideology are much more intertwined today than they were even 20 years ago, let alone 40 years ago.
I believe my party should never flinch from the requirement that we must continue this progression, otherwise we may end up like the Republican party who lost an election last year that they could have won were it not for their socially conservative agenda. We may have gone two steps forward, but I fear we may have gone one step backwards. The modernisation of the Conservative party is not yet complete.
[Is the Conservative Party still the Nasty Party?] I said it was perceived as the Nasty Party. And is it? I don't think that it's a phrase that people today would apply to the Party. I think that the perception of the Party has changed.
The leadership class of the Republican Party is a conservative Christian loony bin. The leadership of the Republican Party are a bunch of sociopathic maniacs who have their lips super-glued to the ass of the conservative right.