I'm looking forward to the day when America will mature to the point that we are a color-blind society. I'm not so sure that in politics that will ever be reality, because politics has a way of separating us based on skin color.

I was taught to respect everyone for the simple reason that we're all God's children. I was taught, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.... to judge a man not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. And I was taught that character...is simply doing what's right when nobody's looking.

If diversity is O.K. for God, it ought to be O.K. for Republicans.

I think the Republican Party should be a pro-life party. I am pro-life. I do not apologize for that. On the flip side of that coin, the Republican Party has been big enough to allow pro-choice advocates to be heard.

Good policy makes good politics and what I've done has been good politics.

In my wildest imagination, I never thought that the fifth of six children born to Helen and Buddy Watts - in a poor black neighborhood, in the poor rural community of Eufaula, Oklahoma - would someday be called Congressman.

I am willing to compete on my merits and on my character - not with the color of my skin. We talk about being a color-blind society, but I don't think the political process could actually handle that.