I grew up in a family of Republicans. And when I was 18 and registering to vote my mom's only instruction was 'You just go in and pull the big Republican lever.' That's my welcome to adulthood. She's like 'No don't even read it. Just pull the Republican lever.

The big divide in this country is not between Democrats and Republicans or women and men but between talkers and doers.

If Republicans want to be seen as more compassionate they should continue to stand proudly for the sanctify of life and marriage. And they should do so without apologizing.

House Republican leadership have refused to allow a clean minimum wage vote. Close to 15 million Americans will be affected if we did this. Do Republicans really expect a family to live on less than $11 000 a year?

I think that if Republicans are given the reins of leadership in the House or Senate or both we will have to govern in a way - at least put forward solutions whether or not the president goes along with them or not that deal with these long-term challenges.

The fact is when it comes to economic leadership the Republicans have nothing to brag about. This isn't what the American people want. They want to see progress that works for them.

We're going to need to absorb some pain. The Republicans want to pile all the pain on people who can least afford it and the middle class and Democrats under his leadership want to make sure that we can address deficit reduction and continue to make investments and shared sacrifice is going to be imperative in order to be able to do that.

But the fact is that the vast majority of Republicans support the Sinn Fein leadership.

We have a tremendous lack of knowledge of how far we have gotten away from the Constitution of the United States. Democrats and Republicans alike have taken us away from the original intent. You see I believe in this document as our founding fathers intended it.

House and Senate Republicans are now united in adopting earmark bans. We hope President Obama will follow through on his support for an earmark ban by pressing Democratic leaders to join House and Senate Republicans in taking this critical step to restore public trust.