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Washington is horribly broken. We are encountering a day of reckoning and this movement, this Tea Party movement, is a message to Washington that we're unhappy and that we want things done differently.

In America today, unfortunately, the right wing has been totally commandeered by the Tea Party, and it's a bad thing for our party.

But I think the - what the tea party movement demonstrates, and I think the, the, the enthusiasm that we're seeing from independents and Republicans, is that if Washington isn't going to change itself, then we're going to change Washington. And I think that's what we're seeing.

The Republican Party would be really smart to absorb as much of the Tea Party movement as possible.

My advice to the tea party freshmen: Slow the galloping horses to a trot. Big government was built over decades; it can't be dismantled in a year, especially when Democrats control the White House.

We must stop the Tea Party before the United States Senate falls into the hands of extremists and ideologues who leave no room for reason or compromise, who don't recognize common ground even when they're standing on it.

The Republican establishment may in fact be so desirous of getting rid of the Tea Party as its base, they may be willing to lose some elections in order to get rid of their base and put up a new base.

If not for the Tea Party, the Republican Party would not be coming back to its roots.

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

As in nature, politics abhors a vacuum. Without a strong voice for more moderate leadership, the Tea Party is filling that vacuum.