Karl Rove Quotes

Not all Republicans in the class of 2010 owe their seats to the Tea Party. But many do.

To some extent, the mainstream's absence means the Tea Party is the Republican Party.

If Republicans triumph in 2014, it will undoubtedly be as a result of Obamacare. In 2010, Republicans soared to historic victory because the much-maligned Tea Party spearheaded mass resistance to Obama's takeover of the healthcare industry.

I'm a conservative Republican, and I'm not a member of the Tea Party Caucus, but I have very good friends that are.

Our political system is based on two parties fighting to capture the middle. Unfortunately the Republican party has been captured by conservative extremists.

Opposition to abortion was one of the ways the Christian right was brought into the Republican Party by conservatives hoping to move the party further right. Now, of course, the tail is wagging the dog.

The tea party movement has challenged the GOP to get back on track or risk losing its grip on the right wing. It's reminded Democrats that a slick marketing campaign coupled with paid activism isn't the same as a groundswell of real change, and the reason that Democrats are so hostile towards it is because they've never before encountered it.

While their fiscal views aren't mine, the moderates are the last reasonable voice in the current Republican Party.

The Tea Party is almost solely grassroots-based; business interests have almost no grassroots organization. The Republican Party has for too long been run on behalf of business interests who favor candidates the grassroots hate; the minute that those candidates begin to flag, only loyal Tea Partiers stand behind them.

As the Republicans run to the crazy Tea Party right, they leave behind the huge mass of genuinely moderate and independent Americans that make up the majority of voters. The ones that used to consider themselves now-extinct moderate Republicans. They're up for grabs. And the Democrats have to grab them!

The reality of it is I think the GOP - Republicans and certainly conservatives - will partner with the Tea Party movement around this country.

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.

There is no real third party in America. There's this one party that has two sides to it - the Democratic and Republican side. It's one party that has two heads.

In many respects, I guess I would say I was into Tea Party before there was a Tea Party.

The most passionately anti-Obama Republican politicians and activists consider themselves the truest and purest of conservatives, and often unleash their scorn and fury on others who also call themselves conservative but differ on strategy and tactics.

Is Romney a tea party candidate? I'd probably say that he's the least of the candidates running for president right now that would be considered a tea party candidate.

The Republican Party is not inclusive.

Really it's hard to know where the Republican Party ends and the Tea Party begins.

I've never attended any Tea Party functions.

I always start my discussions with the Tea Party groups with telling them, 'you know I have only three words for you: God. Bless. You.' Because the Tea Party's bringing the Republican party back to a more conservative base.

When you see John Boehner crying, believe you me, it's because he cannot control, uh, that wild contingency called the Tea Party.

In the Tea Party era, it is the restless conservative Republican who has become passion's plaything, the toy of impetuous romance, an erotomania only intensified by the lusting for an upstart savior.

The Democrats fought with the conservatives. The Republicans fought with the liberals. The Bull Moosers fought with everybody.

The religious right is turning the Republican party into a revival tent.

Because, Bill, I think we’ve given the South away to the Republican party for as long as anyone can foresee.