And so it was interesting for me to find myself very enamored of a Republican president, but Ronald Reagan was someone I thought captured the spirit of America.
But I think there was a sense amongst the House Republicans especially that we didn't just want to be opposed to Bill Clinton; that we wanted to tell the country what we were for and to brand ourselves in a more positive manner.
I accept people for who they are and love them. That doesn't mean I have to agree or that I have to turn my back on the tenets of my faith and reject the tenets of my faith when it comes to homosexuality.
I don't want to be disrespectful of the president of the United States, but as a political person, one of the things I appreciated about this president, in the past year especially, is he is a fantastic candidate.
I think Karl Rove saw that in George W. Bush early on and understood the impact that he could have on Texas politics and probably on national politics.
If Ralph Nader runs, President Bush is going to be re-elected, and if Ralph Nader doesn't run, President Bush is going to be re-elected. We're going to run on the president's strong and principled leadership and his positive agenda for a second term.
On the other side, I do believe that the rhetoric we are seeing from the Democrats today is unprecedented, is a new low in presidential politics and goes beyond political discourse and amounts to political hate speech.