Politics & Power Quote by Tom Coburn

Coburn frames politics as an exercise in moral housekeeping: get back to basics, stop the gimmicks, and the public will reward you. The phrase "first principles" isn’t a policy program so much as a purity test, a way to imply that current Republicans have drifted into opportunism, spending, and culture-war theater that can’t be squared with their stated creed. He offers a neat bargain: deliver "common sense, fiscal responsibility and limited government" and voters will hand back legitimacy.

The subtext is sharper than the polite wording. Calling for "an honest party" is an indictment of his own side’s habits: earmarks, debt-friendly tax cuts, and performative outrage that substitutes for governing. Coburn was famous as a deficit hawk and a thorn in leadership’s side, so this reads less like generic branding and more like an internal warning shot. It’s also a strategic pitch to re-center the party around a unifying, marketable identity, one that can appeal beyond the base without surrendering conservative fundamentals.

Context matters: this is the post-Bush, post-Tea Party era when Republicans were loudly campaigning against big government while repeatedly wrestling with the reality that voters like benefits, defense spending, and tax cuts all at once. "If we govern to save the country" tries to elevate austerity into patriotism, casting restraint as civic duty rather than sacrifice. It’s aspirational, and a little defensive: the promise is that good government will be good politics, precisely because too many people suspected the opposite had become true.