Quotes By J. C. Watts

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.

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.

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

I'm not driven to get back into politics. It's not on my top five things to do before I die, but saying that, I may be in politics in the next year or the next ten years. I've been on the front line for 12 years, four in state government, eight on the national level.

I think that anybody that stays in school, gets good grades, pays the price, I think we are wealthy enough in the public and the private sector in America to make sure that every child in America that wants to continue their education, they should be able to do that.

Everyone tries to define this thing called Character. It's not hard. Character is doing what's right when nobody's looking.

When it comes to the American dream, no one has a corner on the market. All of us have an equal chance to share in that dream.

Some might think that George W. Bush had his shortcomings, but let me tell you something - history's going to be kind to George W. Bush.

I would caution all of us or I would remind all of us that any candidate that we support, they are going to be flawed.

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.

I like to call the ethos I grew up with 'Oklahoma values.' But you'd be just as accurate if you said 'American values.' Except for our lack of a seacoast, Oklahoma has a little bit of just about everything that's American.

I am willing to compete on my merits and on my character - not with the color of my skin. We talk about being a color-blind society, but I don't think the political process could actually handle that.

Like any group that has endured much, African Americans have created a strong and mutually reinforcing sense of group identity. That's not a bad thing in and of itself.

I never got into politics for it to be a career.

For longer than I've been involved in the political process, the Republican establishment has claimed to want to provide an alternative for the black community, yet party elite refuse to show up for the game.

The Democratic Party has taken the black community for granted and said, 'This is the most loyal constituency we have. They're not going anywhere.' But the Republican Party has said, 'That's the most loyal constituency Democrats have. They're not going anywhere. We've got to win without them.'

I don't know if anybody has moved up the ladder more quickly than I have.

Individual responsibility, hard work, paying attention in school, faith, family all these things are important.

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.'

The strength of America is not in Washington.

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

Having a Republican candidate speak at the NAACP convention is like trying to build a house starting at the roof. If you don't have a foundation, the roof isn't going to stand.

I think in politics, in Congress, you often do things that are Republican, or you do things because you're a Democrat. Sometimes that's good, obviously, and sometimes that's obviously bad. But in the news business, there's no such thing as Republican or Democratic news. News is news.

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.

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

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.

You always hear 'black Republican,' but you never hear 'white Democrat.' We've got to get beyond the labels and stereotypes. Other people have hang-ups about it. I don't.

Consider in Washington, around the country today we are talking about balanced budgets, paying down our national debt, getting the economy going, defending ourselves, activist judges. Newt Gingrich did all those things when he was speaker. We got tax relief. We got balanced budgets. We got, you know, job creation. We paid down our national debt.

Republicans think that the NAACP is the only voice in the black community. It is a voice in the black community. But it's not the only voice.

I'm looking forward to the day when America will mature to the point that we are a color-blind society. I'm not so sure that in politics that will ever be reality, because politics has a way of separating us based on skin color.