The biggest thing I've learned from my dad is he's had adoring crowds of 8,000 at Berkeley, and 6,000 at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. That's an amazing feat to have people coming out in one of the most liberal universities and one of the most conservative.

I think the key to getting rid of illegal immigration, no matter where its coming from, is that you need to have a good legal apparatus for immigration.

A Tea Party tidal wave is coming.

To defend our country we need to gather intelligence on the enemy, but when the intelligence lies to Congress, how are we to trust them? The phone records of law abiding citizens are none of their damn business.

I thought it was a joke at first, but the president did, in fact, authorize an autopen to sign the Patriot Act extension into law. Consider the dangerous precedent this sets. Any number of circumstances could arise in the future where the public could question whether or not the president authorized the use of an autopen.

This was the way I was brought up to think of politics, that politics was to do with ethics, it was to do with responsibility, it was to do with service, so I think I was conditioned to think like that, and I'm too old to change now.

We can score political points. We can try to advance some important initiatives. But at some point, it takes sober-minded, responsible conservative leaders to identify when you've pushed as far as you can and to have the courage to go back and face the electorate and explain to them why you voted the way you did.

They're lots of good Americans here in New York who have common sense and who believe in free markets and free people and limited government under our Constitution. Those are the principles I've always stood for. I know they're right, and that's what I'm going to stand for.