Mark Shields Quotes

The Tea Party claims to want small government.

My political views have since I was a kid someway or another reflected the concerns of Tea Party movement.

I am a defender of the Tea Party.

I was Tea Party years before there was an official Tea Party.

It is not about Republicanism, it's about conservatism.

I'm a right-wing conservative.

And my principles go right in line with the Tea Party.

Make no mistake about it. These are not 'kookie' birds. Right now the greatest player, the big tent on the political scene in America, is called the Tea Party movement.

What I say is I am somebody who cares about conservative ideas. I want to see them implemented in governance.

The Tea Party is simply a loose description of local activism driven by Americans who want smaller government and more self-reliance. That sounds like what the Founding Fathers had in mind, does it not?

It was widespread that the politics of Tea Party people would be foreign to Ronald Reagan and they would be seen by him as frivolous and uninformed.

The debate in the Republican Party needs to be between libertarians and conservatives.

There are 100 different doors to come into the conservative movement. You can disagree with 99 of them, as long as you agree on one: more-limited government.

The only problem with Republican principles is no one's following them.

I don't really like labels in politics, but I will gladly accept the label of conservatism.

The conservative movement is about government playing its important yet limited role, and about not falling into the trap of believing that every problem has an exclusive government answer for it.

One of the beauties of the Tea Party movement - and the many, many like-minded citizens that don't participate in the Tea Party movement - is the fact that it is independent.

I think that the tea party, grassroots ideology will win every time.

We have to make conservatism cool and exciting again.

Conservatism accomplished a lot of its goals in the latter part of the 20th century. What does 21st-century conservatism look like?

I'm more of a Tea Party person.

The Tea Party, which is pretty darn clear on its main focus, which is fiscal restraint, financial restraint, economic restraint, and return to Constitutional values and Founding Fathers' principles, had been impugned as racist, violent, homophobic, and all their motivations have been impugned.

The Tea Party and the like are about what we can't do, instead of the American ideal of what we can.

I call it small government, grass-roots activism: The Tea Party activists are a part of it, FreedomWorks is part of it. FreedomWorks is the longest-standing, most active organization within this movement.

I think the Tea Party has brought important issues to the table.