The problem we have is not Democrats versus Republicans. It is a Washington cartel. I've said many times the biggest divide we have politically is not between Republicans and Democrats. It's between career politicians in both parties and the American people.

Enough of these little kitty cats we keep sending to Washington. David Dewhurst will compromise every day in the U.S. Senate... It's what he's done every day in state government.

The Scalia seat is defense. We're not going to get any better than Justice Scalia. The best we can do is preserve constitutional victories like upholding the Second Amendment, like protecting religious liberty. But we're not going to get any better.

President Obama, when he was elected, he could have been a unifying figure. He could have chosen to be a leader on race relations and bring us together. And he hasn't done that, he's made decisions that I think have inflamed racial tensions that have divided us rather than bringing us together.

We're seeing so many people come around and say, "Listen, we want a real conservative. We don't want a Washington dealmaker who will support Democrats and cut deals to grow government and give into the cronyism and corporate welfare."

This man [Barack Obama] does not have the interests of our country. That's not his agenda. His agenda is to bring us down to a third-world country.

That's what actually caused me to run for office is, you know, my family story, the experience of growing up in a family where your dad had been imprisoned, had been tortured, and came to America with nothing, washing dishes for 50 cents an hour. That was perhaps the most formative experience of my childhood, is being raised in that household where freedom had an urgency.