I represented the 4th District of South Carolina... from the election '92 until election '98. And then I was out six years and then came back for another six years between the election 2004 and the election 2010.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I was a Democrat for a period of time early on. And then I was also an independent. And then I became a Republican.
I entered politics in 1967; since then, continuously, I am getting elected... Fortunately I never lost the elections.
Almost forty-five years after my parents first became Americans, I stand before you and them tonight as the proud governor of the state of South Carolina.
I became a Republican in the summer of 1972. I was involved in running President Nixon's re-election campaign in California and became part of his administration at the start of his second term.
I was a Georgia state legislator for a great many years.
It wasn't until after I was reelected in 1982 that I thought of myself as a long-term member of Congress.
In 2006 it was a horrible election year, and, you know, I lost. But I lost because I continued to be a constant conservative, and the last six years I was someone who was a national figure in the sense that I was the third ranking Republican in leadership and I had just run President Bush's campaign in Pennsylvania.
I was elected six times to represent southern Arizona, in the State Legislature and then in Congress.
I was on the campaign trail for 18 months. I never got a question about the District of Columbia in South Carolina.
I continued to serve in Congress until 2001.