I think I can do more inside the Republican Party to keep it in the center of the road. That's where Eisenhower was. And I'm an unabashed Eisenhower Republican.

Political career
In the late 1950s Percy decided to enter politics. About a year after the murder of her twin sister Valerie in 1966 Sharon Percy married John D. Elizabeth Harting was a daughter of Phineas Fredrick Harting and Belle Aschenbach.

In 1966 he was elected to the United States Senate from Illinois as a Republican; he served for almost twenty years until 1985 after he was defeated by Paul Simon. He was president of the Bell & Howell Corporation from 1949 to 1964. During his Senate career he concentrated on business and foreign relations.