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conservative economist, a guy so revered by republicans that in a debate last year, mitt romney said he wished he could bringham back from the dead to put him in charge of the federal reserve. he proposed a requirement that every u.s. family unit have a major medical inshrjs policy. okay, you might say these are just conservative intellectuals, doesn'tprieve anything about the republican party. fast forward to 1993, the day republican senator jon chaffee of rhode island introduced his party's alternative to the clinton bill. >> mr. president, i'm very pleased today to join with 19 of...

But the sad part about it is the house of representatives, we all know, is dominated by the tea party. what people don't realize is the senate, about 40% of republican senators are tea party folks. look at what happened -- we have a moderate republican elected from missouri. he had had experience in house leadership, roy blunt. he runs for a spot here third or fourth down the hierarchy of republican leadership. he damn near got beat because he was running against a tea party guy, johnson from wisconsin. so the american people aren't going to accept what the republicans have been trying to do o...

Do you fear that this failure of the performance of the republican presidential candidates will, in fact, focus real republican energy on trying to take away your majority leadership? >> people around the country, republicans around the country, are not like these people here in the senate that are republicans. or in the house. when i came to washington, we had many, many moderate republicans. you know their names as well as i do. danforth, an episcopalian minister from missouri, hatfield and packwood. we had john heinz from pennsylvania, jon chaffee from rhode island. and on and on. you could...

They're doing in the presidential elections. but they're still doing it in our congressional elections. what we need is the republicans to get back where they were, to get back to being a jon chaffee republican, to be a john heinz republican. you know, my congress represents america. i have bernie sanders who, who he was first elected, was a socialist. he's an independent. i have barbara boxer, one of the most progressive members in the entire senate. but on the other side, i have mark prior from arkansas, a very moderate man. i have claire mccaskill from missouri. i have ben nelson from nebra...

Almost given up on the hope of a republican coming out of this crazy republican presidential primary and winning the presidency. so he is saying, it's time to start focusing on the senate and winning back the senate. do you fear that this failure of the performance of the republican presidential candidates will, in fact, focus real republican energy on trying to take away your majority leadership? >> people around the country, republicans around the country, are not like these people here in the senate that are republicans. or in the house. when i came to washington, we had many, many moderate...