When political and business leaders tell the public - any public - 'We don't trust you to make the right decision' - they prejudice that electorate against the very proposals they want it to accept and undermine public confidence in themselves.

In politics it is necessary either to betray one's country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.

What happened with Hurricane Katrina was the American electorate was forced to look at what lay behind the veneer of chest-beating. We all saw the consequences of having terrible government leadership.

You can only get really unpopular decisions through if the electorate is convinced of the value of the environment. That's what natural history programmes should be for.

The growth of modern constitutional government compels for its successful practice the exercise of reason and considerate judgment by the individual citizens who constitute the electorate.

The Founders recognized that Government is quite literally a necessary evil that there must be opposition between its various branches and between political parties for these are the only ways to temper the individual's greed for power and the electorates' desires for peace by submission to coercion or blandishment.

Making recess appointments when the Senate isn't in recess is neither rational nor moderate. It's a raw misuse of executive power by a president whose love of government is his most vulnerable spot with the electorate.

Republican values - strong families faith personal responsibility and freedom among others - are not unique to specific subsets of the electorate. They are universal values and it is Republicans' job to remind Americans of that fact.