When a leader correctly identifies real hurt and insecurity in our country and instead of addressing it, goes looking for somebody to blame, there is perhaps nothing more devastating to a pluralistic society.

The impulse to scapegoat and belittle threatens to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking people. In the case of the Republican Party, those things also threaten to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking minority party.

American leadership looks to the world and just as Lincoln did sees the family of man. Humanity is not a zero-sum game.

I think the Respublican party's lost its way. We have given into nativism and protectionism. And I think that, if we're going to be a governing party in the future, and a majority party, we have got to go back to traditional conservatism, limited government, economic freedom, individual responsibility, respect for free trade. Those are the principles that made us who we are.

I feel at some point that the farm state politics will overwhelm the Florida politics.

For one, I think as a missionary you gotta be stubborn. And you gotta try to be persuasive.

After September 11, it became unpatriotic to question any homeland-security or defense spending, and that let things get out of control.