Conservative Democrat Quotes

Let's get the elephant out of the room. I'm a conservative Democrat. ~ Scott Howell

Political identities aren't about tax cuts. They are about tribes... This is the result of the incredible rise in political polarization in recent decades. It used to be that both the Republican and Democratic parties included both liberals and conservatives. Since parties contained ideological multitudes, it was hard for them to be the basis of strong, personal identities. A liberal Democrat in New Jersey didn't have a lot in common with a conservative Democrat in Alabama. But now that's changed. The parties are sharply sorted by ideology. What were once fractious coalitions have become unified tribes. ~ Ezra Klein

I think you'll find that these are measures that have great bipartisan support, and so I expect, not only did we do well in the primary, I think we'll win by a wide margin in the fall because we're going to get a lot of independents and conservative Democrats coming to us. ~ Rand Paul

There are a lot of conservative people, a lot of moderate people, Republicans, Democrats, in Hollywood. It is just that the conservative people by the nature of the word itself play closer to the vest. They do not go around hot dogging it. ~ Clint Eastwood

The democrat is a young conservative; the conservative is an old democrat. The aristocrat is the democrat ripe, and gone to seed,
because both parties stand on the one ground of the supreme value of property, which one endeavors to get, and the other to keep. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Conservative Party is not honouring the commitment to Lords reform and, as a result, part of our contract has now been broken. Clearly I cannot permit a situation where Conservative rebels can pick and choose the parts of the contract they like, while Liberal Democrat MPs are bound to the entire agreement. ~ Nick Clegg

Entwined with the strand of conservatism in the Democratic party is the strand of empiricism. ~ Dean Acheson

The essence of Christianity is told us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the tree of knowledge. The subtext is, 'All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on. You could be in the Garden of Eden if you had just kept your fucking mouth shut and hadn't asked any questions. ~ Frank Zappa

There is no news media. There's simply a bunch of people on television and in newspapers who are ranking members of the Democrat Party. ~ Rush Limbaugh

There seems to be less obvious corruption in city government and New York politicians, they aren't Republican or Democrat, they're New Yorkers. ~ Malachy McCourt

It's innate in me to be a Democrat - a true Southern populist kind of Democrat. There's not a lot of those anymore. I'm not saying I'm right or wrong. That's just the way I feel. ~ Tim McGraw

Your belief system tends to be a function of how you were raised. Being raised in the Midwest and in a relatively conservative household, my views were shaped by my upbringing, by my Christian faith. ~ Aaron Schock

Stoners just got a powerful new ally in the fight to legalize marijuana - conservative broadcaster Pat Robertson. He said it's time to 'you know, legalize it, tax it, and keep it away from Mel Gibson.' ~ Craig Ferguson

It's always better to be conservative in action. One must always consider the dangers in the world. ~ Frederick Lenz

With all our differences, whenever we are confronted with a threat to our security we are not then Republicans or Democrats but Americans; we are not then the fifty states but the United States. ~ Richard M. Nixon

Conservative coaches have one thing in common; they are unemployed. ~ Chuck Knox

Here in the labyrinth, I struggle to find words to describe what I feel. Up on the mountaintop, I knew the language to describe God: majestic, transcendent, all-powerful, heavenly Father, Lord, and King. In this vocabulary, God remains stubbornly located in a few select places, mostly in external realms above or beyond: heaven, the church, doctrine, or the sacraments. What happens in the labyrinth seems vague, perhaps even theologically elusive.

Like countless others, I have been schooled in vertical theology. Western culture, especially Western Christianity, has imprinted a certain theological template upon the spiritual imagination: God exists far off from the world and does humankind a favor when choosing to draw close. Sermons declared that God's holiness was foreign to us and sin separated us from God. Yes, humanity was made in God's image, but we had so messed things up in the Garden of Eden that any trace of God in us was obscured, if not destroyed. Whether conservative or liberal, most American churches teach some form of the idea that God exists in holy isolation, untouched by the messiness of creation, and that we, God's children, are morally and spiritually filthy, bereft of all goodness, utterly unworthy to stand before the Divine Presence. In its crudest form, the role of religion (whether through revivals, priesthood, ritual, story, sacraments, personal conversion, or morality) is to act as a holy elevator between God above and those muddling around d ~ Diana Butler Bass

Let me announce this to the American people tonight one of the best things about this debate, as a Democrat from Massachusetts, I have proposed eliminating, getting rid of the alternative minimum tax. ~ Richard Neal

[ Democrat Party] believe that there's gonna be mass appreciation and love and everybody's gonna be getting along. ~ Rush Limbaugh

Don't give me any shit about that, Lucas - not with your history," Henderson said, irritated. "No matter what happens with me, I'll get her an impressive-sounding staff job in Washington, something involving Virginia agriculture and natural resources," Henderson said. "I'll buy her some top-end TV training, some good threads, lean on my friends for donations. A hot, female, law-and-order Democrat who carries a gun and has major experience in D.C.? Are you kiddin' me? That Tea Party asshole won't know what hit him. He'll be like Toto in the fuckin' tornado. ~ John Sandford

I might not understand everything a Democrat or liberal thinks but hey let's be honest, I don't understand some of the things the Republicans think, but that doesn't make me some dumb hick that doesn't have the right to live here. ~ Angie Harmon

Only liberal organizations are clearly designated [in the press] as "nonpatisan, nonprofit." Non-liberal research organizations are always identified as "right-wing" or "conservative." ~ Irving Kristol

The True conservative seeks to protect the system of private property and free enterprise by correcting such injustices and inequalities as arise from it. The most serious threat to our institutions comes from those who refuse to face the need for change. Liberalism becomes the protection for the far-sighted conservative. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

What Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country ... he knows that ... the Democrat party is attempting to find anybody but him to blame. He knows if he plays his cards right, he's just a victim ... This guy clearly understands he's getting all the attention and he understands he's got a political party doing everything it can, plus a local sheriff doing everything that they can to make sure he's not convicted of murder
but something lesser. ~ Rush Limbaugh

A conservative is a liberal who got mugged the night before. ~ Frank Rizzo

Yes, (Bush is a) racist. We all knew that but the world is only finding it out now. As Texas's governor, Bush led a penitentiary system that executed more people than all the other U.S. states together. And most of the people who died from (the) death penalty were Afro-Americans or Hispanics. (Bush) promoted a Conservative program, designed to eliminate everything Americans had accomplished so far in matters of race and equality. ~ Danny Glover

The great adventures which our opponents offer is a voyage into the past. Progress is our heritage, not theirs. What is right for us as Democrats is also the right way for Democrats to win. ~ Edward Kennedy

The revolt of the poet is invariably conservative at its roots. ... Not politically conservative, but imaginatively conservative, with a profound regard for what is given, as earth or air, sun or moon or stars, or the dreams of man. ~ Cid Corman

The conservative social critique always boils down to the same simple message: liberalism - meaning everything from racy TV to deconstructionists in the Yale French Department - is an affectation of the loathsome rich, as bizarre as their taste for Corgi dogs and extra-virgin olive oil. ~ Thomas Frank

If you are the kind of person who listens to conservative advice, you may do okay in life, but you probably won't ever be a fantastic leader. You have to take risks, and you also have to go against conventional wisdom, because conventional wisdom doesn't make for startling advances in society. ~ Ruth Simmons

Both the liberal and the conservative are in agreement: it is all very well to let the people alone, but only if they do what you want them to do. ~ Bill Bonner

It is the mission of the next Conservative Government to build the Responsible Society. ~ William Hague

I'm a conservative because I believe in peace - real peace, not just the peace of mind. I'm a conservative because we understand that real peace comes from the Marine Corps, not the Peace Corps. ~ Allen West

However, there will be a Republican Party platform that will coalesce around their convention. Unless I miss my guess, it will be considerably more conservative on these issues, perhaps even than Governor Romney is, and I think that that will give Americans a clear set of choices about all issues, but about women's issues too. ~ Anna Quindlen

What I have been trying to say to intellectuals, preachers, scientists- as well as more generally to publics- can be put into one sentence: drop the liberal rhetoric and the conservative default; they are now parts of one and the same official line; transcend that line. ~ C. Wright Mills

To complete the rout of traditionalists, in America an impression began to arise that the new industrial and acquisitive interests are the conservative interest, that conservatism is simply a political argument in defense of large accumulations of private property, that expansion, centralization, and accumulation are the tenets of conservatives. From this confusion, from the popular belief that Hamilton was the founder of American conservatism, the forces of tradition in the United States never have fully escaped. ~ Russell Kirk

The owners and top managers of most news media organizations tend to be conservative and Republican. This is hardly surprising. The shareholders and executives of multi-billion-dollar corporations are not very interested in undermining the free enterprise system, for example, income from offended advertisers. These owners and managers ultimately decide which reporters, newscasters, and editors to hire or fire, promote or discourage. Journalists who want to get a head, therefore, may have to come to terms with the policies of the people who own and run media businesses. ~ Edward S. Greenberg

As a fiscal conservative, I believe one of the most important roles the federal government can play in assuring that our economy remains strong is to keep our fiscal house in order. ~ Allen Boyd

I heard today that the White House isn't even backing its own bill, because Democrats on the Hill pushed back against it. So now what they're asking for is just a clean $4 billion to help deal with the crisis with no policy reform. And I think that contributes to people having less confidence in their government. ~ Dana Perino

There were plotters, there was no doubt about it. Some had been ordinary people who'd had enough. Some were young people with no money who objected to the fact that the world was run by old people who were rich. Some were in it to get girls. And some had been idiots as mad as Swing, with a view of the world just as rigid and unreal, who were on the side of what they called 'the people'. Vimes had spent his life on the streets, and had met decent men and fools and people who'd steal a penny from a blind beggar and people who performed silent miracles or desperate crimes every day behind the grubby windows of little houses, but he'd never met The People.

People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn't that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people.
As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn't measure up. What would run through the streets soon enough wouldn't be a revolution or a riot. It'd be people who were frightened and panicking. It was what happened when the machinery of city life faltered, the wheels stopped turning and all the little rules broke down. And ~ Terry Pratchett

Good satire is about attacking the powerful, and that tends to be more the purview of the left. Maybe there's something about the conservative mindset that confuses mean-spirited name-calling and insults with actual humor. ~ Tom Tomorrow

Nowhere in politics is there such a mismatch between public and private realm as in transport. Everyone on the M6 last weekend would have agreed with Transport Minister Alasdair Darling's reported hatred of cars. They too wanted drivers off the roads and on to public transport. Go to it, Mr Darling, they cried in unison, get rid of all those cars. Except, of course, their own. Other people's cars are traffic. My car is the outward essence of my being. It is my hat, stick and cane. It embodies my freedom as a citizen and my right as a democrat. My car is my soul in flight. ~ Simon Jenkins

It was Bill Clinton who once pithily captured the contrast between the two parties when it came to selecting a presidential standard-bearer: Democrats want to fall in love; Republicans just fall in line. ~ Mark Halperin

I often think it's comical
How Nature always does contrive
That every boy and every gal
That's born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative! ~ W.S. Gilbert

No surprise here: Pop music is by far the most conservative art form there is. ~ Russell Smith

I am not a liberal, not a conservative, not a believer in gradual progress, not a monk. I should like to be a free artist and nothing more. ~ Anton Chekhov

When an artist submerges a crucifix in a jar of his own urine, or smears elephant dung on an image of the Virgin Mary, do these works belong in art museums?21 Can the artist simply tell religious Christians, "If you don't want to see it, don't go to the museum"? Or does the mere existence of such works make the world dirtier, more profane, and more degraded? If you can't see anything wrong here, try reversing the politics. Imagine that a conservative artist had created these works using images of Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela instead of Jesus and Mary. Imagine that his intent was to mock the quasi-deification by the left of so many black leaders. Could such works be displayed in museums in New York or Paris without triggering angry demonstrations? Might some on the left feel that the museum itself had been polluted by racism, even after the paintings were removed? ~ Jonathan Haidt

A genetic fundamentalism permeates public awareness these days. It may be summed up as the belief that almost every illness and every human trait is dictated by heredity. Simplified media accounts, culled from semidigested research findings, have declared that inflexible laws of DNA rule the biological world. It was reported in 1996 that according to some psychologists, genes determine about 50 percent of a person's inclination to experience happiness. Social ability and obesity are two more among the many human qualities now claimed to be genetic.

True or not, narrow genetic explanations for ADD and every other condition of the mind do have their attractions. They are easy to grasp, socially conservative and psychologically soothing. They raise no uncomfortable questions about how a society and culture might erode the health of its members, or about how life in a family may have affected a person's physiology or emotional makeup. As I have personally experienced, feelings of guilt are almost inevitable for the parents of a troubled child. They are all too frequently reinforced by the uninformed judgments of friends, neighbors, teachers or even total strangers on the bus or in the supermarket. Parental guilt, even if misplaced, is a wound for which the genetic hypothesis offers a balm ~ Gabor Mate

One of the most distinguishing differences between liberals and conservatives in America is that the average Liberal feels that we should have little reservation about killing the unborn, while the average Conservative feels it is better to wait until after they are born before we kill them. ~ Derek R. Audette

My mother was an elementary school teacher for 35 years and taught at the Nixon School in New Jersey. I was raised as a very liberal Democrat, and she was protesting Nixon when he was in office. ~ Peter Dinklage

In a Republican primary every candidate is going to come in front of you and say I'm the most conservative guy that ever lived. Goshdarnit, whodidily, I'm conservative. You know what, talk is cheap. The word tells us you shall know them by their fruits ... Look every candidate in the eye and say 'Don't talk, show me.' ~ Ted Cruz

I agree with Dreher when he writes, 'we can't build anything good unless we live by the belief that man does not exist to serve the economy, but the economy exists to serve man ... A society built on consumerism must break down eventually for the same reason socialism did' ~ Paul Weyrich

I haven't always been warmly welcomed for holding my conservative positions in Hollywood. Then again, I've never been very good at being politically correct either, on or off screen. So why start now? ~ Chuck Norris

Eric Helzer and David Pizarro asked students at Cornell University to fill out surveys about their political attitudes while standing near (or far from) a hand sanitizer dispenser. Those told to stand near the sanitizer became temporarily more conservative.27 ~ Jonathan Haidt

Surely something must be terribly wrong with a man who seems to be far more concerned with Jews building houses in Israel than with Muslims building a nuclear bomb in Iran. ~ Burt Prelutsky

One of my movies was called 'True Lies.' It's what the Democrats should have called their convention. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

For example, from 1968 to 1992 (with the exception of the Carter presidency), the voters selected a fairly conservative president and a fairly liberal Congress, creating what might be seen as a Strict Father executive and a Nurturant Mother Congress, thus reproducing a classic family model in the government, with strictness at the top and caring right below. Thus, ~ George Lakoff