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The nature of our two main political parties has changed in the United States.

I think we have lost track of a core Republican principle of limited government and balancing budgets and restraining federal spending. We have got to change the system.

What Republicans need to do is to go back to their roots - starting with Lincoln - and remind the nation that they are the party of national growth, racial equality and unity of purpose. These Lincolnian themes will serve Republicans - and the nation - much better than becoming the party on the lookout for the supposed rat head of higher taxes.

I said after 2006 that Republicans didn't just lose our majority, we lost our way. I mean, our party walked away from the principles that men in our national governing majority first in 1980 and again in 1994, and the American people walked away from us.

I haven't left the Republican Party. It left me.

The Republican Party, which John McCain led as our nominee in 2008, is going to become irrelevant if we become the party of intolerance and hate. The party founded by Abraham Lincoln was a party that fought slavery and intolerance at every level.

If we don't like what the Republicans do, we need to get in there and change it.

Had there not been these safety valves of political parties and elections, we may very well have had no way to change except forceful overthrow of government.