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J. C. Watts Quotes

Powerful J. C. Watts for Daily Growth

Affirmative action is a little like the professional football draft. The NFL awards its No. 1 draft choices to the lowest-ranked team in the league. It doesn't do this out of compassion or guilt. It's done for mutual survival. They understand that a league can only be as strong as its weakest team.

- J. C. Watts

Professional Football, Weakest

There's a whole lot more to the African-American community than entertainment and sports.

- J. C. Watts

Sports, Entertainment, Lot, African-American

I guess probably in my time in politics, it continued to be affirmed to me that the African-American community, despite being subscription television's most valuable customers, they are very underserved by cable and satellite television programming options.

- J. C. Watts

Politics, Very, Subscription, African-American

I do think, however, that there's a very diverse point of view in the African-American community. There's a lot of different voices that need to be heard. I don't claim and pretend to know the thoughts and opinions and ideas of all African-Americans.

- J. C. Watts

Point Of View, Very, However, African-American

Everything I am I owe to my faith and secondly to parents who were old school.

- J. C. Watts

Faith, Old, Am, Old School

I have often said one of the reasons more blacks don't support Republicans is because they don't trust the GOP establishment.

- J. C. Watts

Trust, Republicans, Reasons, Blacks

That's the way blacks have been encouraged to think: that we got to stick together. You've got a situation today where if a black person says he thinks O.J. Simpson's guilty, other blacks will cut their eyes at him and say, 'You ought to go somewhere and sit down and shut up.'

- J. C. Watts

Other, Been, Shut, Blacks

Republicans and Democrats have used accounting gimmicks and competing government analyses to deceive the public into believing that 2 + 2 = 6. If our leaders cannot agree on the numbers, if 'facts' are fictional, how can they possibly have a substantive debate on solutions?

- J. C. Watts

Numbers, Republicans, Fictional

When you look at the results that Newt Gingrich got when he was speaker, he got results for the American people.

- J. C. Watts

American, Look, Gingrich, Newt

I think Newt Gingrich has a proven track record of changing Washington and getting results.

- J. C. Watts

Think, I Think, Newt

The more I ponder some of the boneheaded decisions GOP candidates have made of late, I can't bring myself to believe that they are serious about capturing more than about 8 percent of the black vote.

- J. C. Watts

More, Some, Made, Capturing

Well, Mark, I led the charge for five or six years to get reforms for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I was chairman of an organization called 'FM Policy Focus.' What we were saying was, if there was blip in the housing market, Fannie and Freddie would destabilize the greatest economy in the world.

- J. C. Watts

Focus, Housing, Led, Mac

The measure of a man is not how great his faith is, but how great his love is. We must not let government programs disconnect our souls from each other.

- J. C. Watts

Love, Other, Disconnect, Love Is

In 2008, as a matter of fact, I had people accusing me of being a Senator Obama supporter because I wouldn't slam him. I said, 'Well, consider the fact that I voted for impeachment for President Clinton, but it wasn't a personal vote. I voted based on the facts and the law and the Constitution and what we were dealing with.'

- J. C. Watts

Constitution, Fact, Obama, Accusing

I think the Republican Party should be a pro-life party. I am pro-life. I do not apologize for that. On the flip side of that coin, the Republican Party has been big enough to allow pro-choice advocates to be heard.

- J. C. Watts

Think, Big, Allow, Apologize

I think you grow wherever God plants you. I hope I'm growing as a person of faith, as a Christian. That should be our number one objective this journey of life. That all starts with a personal intimate relationship with Christ and then being in prayer every single day about all of those things - being tenacious about it.

- J. C. Watts

Faith, I Think, About, Every Single Day

We need to remember that politics is all about people, not programs. We shouldn't want to take the humanness out of the political arena.

- J. C. Watts

Politics, Want, Need, Humanness

I'm not one that believes that affirmative action should be based on one's skin color or one's gender, I think it should be done based on one's need, because I think if you are from a poor white community, I think that poor white kid needs a scholarship just as badly as a poor black kid.

- J. C. Watts

Color, I Think, Badly, Scholarship

Most of all, however, critics of black conservatives say we've forgotten where we came from. I may forget a federal budget number or, God forbid, to set the alarm clock for my weekly 6 a.m. flight to Washington, but I know exactly where I came from.

- J. C. Watts

Flight, However, Forbid, Alarm

Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. There are too many people who think that the only thing that's right is to get by, and the only thing that's wrong is to get caught.

- J. C. Watts

Doing, Think, Caught, Too Many People

I embrace my blackness, just as I do my conservatism and my Christianity, but I don't want to be defined or pigeonholed by any one of the many elements that make up my character.

- J. C. Watts

Embrace, Want, Blackness, Defined

I would love to be associated with some sports organization. I was a journalism major. That's kind of intriguing, to do something in the political-commentary arena.

- J. C. Watts

Love, Sports, Some, Journalism

The establishment wonders why we can't get more of the black vote. It's because it's not doing the things necessary to establish a deeper relationship with the black community. Most black people don't think alike. Most black people just vote alike.

- J. C. Watts

Doing, Think, Necessary, Establish

The past two decades revolutionized the way we access information. You and I can have our questions answered with the click of a mouse at any time of day. If America, both corporation and citizen alike, can use these services to solve problems, why can't Washington?

- J. C. Watts

Questions, Access, Use, Decades

My work in the House of Representatives, at this time in my life, is completed. It is time to return home.

- J. C. Watts

Work, My Life, Return Home, Completed

I'm secure in who I am. I don't need the validation of those that would say, you have to be a certain thing in order to be accepted. I'm comfortable going against the grain if I need to.

- J. C. Watts

Need, Against, Going, Grain

In my wildest imagination, I never thought that the fifth of six children born to Helen and Buddy Watts - in a poor black neighborhood, in the poor rural community of Eufaula, Oklahoma - would someday be called Congressman.

- J. C. Watts

Thought, Born, Six, Neighborhood

In 1989 when I switched from Democrat to Republican, with God as my witness, not one thing changed about what I believed about one man and one woman in a marriage or about diversity of color. That's a good thing.

- J. C. Watts

Woman, Color, Republican, Changed

If you are explaining, you are losing.

- J. C. Watts

Losing, You, Explaining

The Republican Party is terrific at determining how a program will impact the federal budget, but we're not nearly as good as the Democrats in explaining to people how our agenda will directly benefit them and their families.

- J. C. Watts

Republican, Will, Democrats, Explaining

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