Half a century ago, Ronald Reagan, the man whose relentless optimism inspired me to enter politics, famously said that he didn't leave the Democratic Party; the party left him. I can certainly relate. I didn't leave the Republican Party; it left me.
I grew up in a Texas where people would say, 'I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me.' Now, the reverse is happening. People are leaving the Republican Party because the Republican Party is going too far to the right in Texas. And that's a source of great potential support for Democrats.
I didn't leave the Republican Party. It left me.
The Democratic Party went far to the left, I think, and left some of us stranded on the beach, so we went to the Republican Party.
[Donald] Trump, I think, understands it. He has said this is going to be a new Republican Party, a workers' Republican Party, instead of just the elite Republican Party.
I don't intend to leave the Republican Party, but I would like to move the Republican Party more to the center.
The Republican Party supported the Equal Rights Amendment before the Democratic Party did. But what happened was that a lot of very right-wing Democrats, after the civil rights bill of 1964, left the Democratic Party and gradually have taken over the Republican Party.
I knew that however bad the Republican party was, the Democratic party was much worse. The elements of which the Republican party was composed gave better ground for the ultimate hope of the success of the colored mans cause than those of the Democratic party.
I will not leave the Republican Party, ... The Republican Party is my home.
The thing to remember is that Donald Trump didn't rescue the Republican Party, he crushed the Republican Party. The Republican Party was so weak that an outsider came along and just wiped it out.
The Republicans in Congress, they believe in Ronald Reagan's Republican Party, not Donald Trump Republican Party or Steve Bannon's Republican Party.
I would say practical progressive, which means that the Republican party or any political party has got to recognize the problems of a growing and complex industrial civilization. And I don't think the Republican party is really wide awake to that.
I think the Republican Party has changed. I think our politics have changed. The parties have deteriorated in their strength. They decentralized. We have these new super PACs and outside organizations and the Tea Party, a libertarian movement in the Republican Party. It's very different. And I think these Republicans now are very scared.
I haven't left the Republican Party. It left me.
You can't say the Negro left the Republican Party; the Negro feels he was evicted from the Republican Party.
I've been left to wonder if it's the national Republican Party Scott Brown represents, or the people of Massachusetts? Let me add that I believe it's a fair question to ask of any of us, Republican or Democrat, who have the privilege of being sent to Washington.