A Quote by John Ratcliffe
The challenge of the Republican Party is, if we're going to start winning national elections, we've got to get along as all kinds of Republicans.
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As conservatives, as Republicans, we keep winning elections. We got a Republican House, we've got a Republican Senate, and we don't have leaders who honor their commitments. I will always tell the truth and do what I said I would do.
We have a ways to go here, but elections have consequences ... I think that our Republican colleagues, the Republican National Party, understands this is our new demographic in America as a result of the election. I think they understand if they want to be a national party, they're going to have to deal with this issue. For Latinos and other immigrants, this is the civil rights issue of our time.
The party cannot be competitive nationally unless it's competitive in California, Oregon, Washington, New England, Pennsylvania, along the coasts. And the problem for the party is, you can't get there from here. You can't start out where the current Republicans are and win back those places. To me, what you have to do is create a different Republican Party that can win in those places.
In terms of Republicans, we have got to get to our cohorts in the Republican Party to get them to understand if we are going to get this country to its traditional values... we're going to have to control our borders and manage this huge change in our culture that's occurring.
Folks, let me ask you a question about that. You voted in 2010, 2014. You're part of the Tea Party and you show up and you just vote. Republicans said they needed the House, and you gave it to 'em; then they said they needed the Senate, and you gave it to 'em. Do you feel like winners even after those two elections? Probably not, because you really didn't think the Republican Party was going to change their stripes and start acting on all this.
The Republicans in Congress, they believe in Ronald Reagan's Republican Party, not Donald Trump Republican Party or Steve Bannon's Republican Party.
Three of the last four [elections], '06, '08, and '12, were disastrous for Republicans. And they were years in which we just we stayed quiet, we went along the get-along, we didn't stand on principle. The only year that was a good year for Republicans was 2010, when we painted in bold colors, not in pale pastels. We stood for principle. I think winning this fight right now is the most important thing we can do to see significant victories in 2014.
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 Democratic Party has been a party of reaction - a party of opposition, complaining about Trump and the Republicans, rather than offering a lot of our own ideas and our own vision. And my view is that if Democrats want to start winning again, we have to start leading again.
I challenge the Republican nominees and all Republicans to not just be the anti-illegal immigration party. That's not who we are and that's not who we should be we should be the pro-legal immigration 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.
[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.
You combine the Tea Party along with our support with the Republican base and grassroots, and it makes for a winning combination.
I went to my first national convention in 1976, when my family supported [Ronald] Reagan over [Gerald] Ford, so we've always been Republicans, but we've always wanted the Republican Party to be the party of fiscally conservative, limited-government types. And I think, sometimes, we haven't done that as well.
If Democrats want to start winning elections in this country, they're going to have to start connecting with voters as well as I connect with my fans.
[Donald] Trump is winning because people that vote Republican have been let down and disappointed one too many times, and their instinct is being borne out here. The Republican Party is not interested in winning.
