The country already has a leader who divides us with the bitter politics of envy. We have to offer an alternative vision.
— Mitt Romney
It's opportunity. It's opportunity, not a check from government - it's opportunity that has always driven America and defined us as Americans.
The promise of America has always been that if you worked hard, had the right values, took some risks, that there was an opportunity to build a better life for your family and for your next generation.
You know, out-of-touch liberals like Barack Obama say they want a strong economy, but in everything they do, they show they don't like business very much. But the economy, of course, is simply the product of all the businesses of the nation added together. So it's a bit like saying you like an omelet, but you don't like eggs.
This is the America that I love. This is a great people. We can do anything. We can achieve anything. We've got a government that has gotten in the way of the American people. We're going to change that in November.
The American culture promotes personal responsibility, the dignity of work, the value of education, the merit of service, devotion to a purpose greater than self, and at the foundation, the pre-eminence of family.
What you believe, what you value, how you live, matters.
Religious liberty is the first freedom in our Constitution. And whether the cause is justice for the persecuted, compassion for the needy and the sick, or mercy for the child waiting to be born, there is no greater force for good in the nation than Christian conscience in action.
Through pro-growth policies, by abolishing Obamacare and eliminating other Obama-imposed impediments to economic growth, we will get our economy back on track.
In recent years, we have seen the United States back away from pressuring the Castro regime, under the misguided view that placating them with an open hand would yield progress. That naivete has invited only more cruelty and oppression in return.
Instead of just giving lip service to improving our schools, I will actually put the kids first and the teachers union behind in giving our kids better teachers, better options and better choices for a better future.
Christianity is not the faith of the complacent, the comfortable or of the timid. It demands and creates heroic souls like Wesley, Wilberforce, Bonhoeffer, John Paul the Second, and Billy Graham. Each showed, in their own way, the relentless and powerful influence of the message of Jesus Christ.
Perhaps religious conscience upsets the designs of those who feel that the highest wisdom and authority comes from government. But from the beginning, this nation trusted in God, not man. Religious liberty is the first freedom in our Constitution.
I have never once regretted missing a business opportunity so that I could be with my children and grandchildren.
Opportunity expands when there is excellence and choice in education, when taxes are lowered, when every citizen has affordable, portable health insurance and when constitutional freedoms are preserved.
Together we will build an America where hope is a new job with a paycheck, not a faded word on an old bumper sticker.
I will insist on a military so powerful no one would ever think of challenging it.
I will spend the next four years rebuilding the foundation of a opportunity society led by free people and free enterprises.
Free enterprise has done more to lift people out of poverty, to help build a strong middle class, to help educate our kids, and to make our lives better than all the programs of government combined.
Washington has to become an ally of business, not the opposition of business.
Mr. President, you were elected to lead. You chose to follow. And now it's time for you to get out of the way.
Men and women of every faith and good people with none at all sincerely strive to do right and lead a purpose-driven life.
Central to America's rise to global leadership is our Judeo-Christian tradition with the vision of the goodness and possibilities of every human life.
People of different faiths, like yours and mine, sometimes wonder where we can meet in common purpose, when there are so many differences in creed and theology. Surely the answer is that we can meet in service, in shared moral convictions about our nation stemming from a common worldview.
I've met graduating college kids facing loan payments and a bad economy, and they are worried that they won't be able to get a job. This is not the way America needs to be.
By making bold cuts in spending and commonsense entitlement reforms, we will make our government simpler, smaller, and smarter.
The Cuban people still live in constant fear of a brutal totalitarian regime that has demonstrated time and again its utter disregard for basic human dignity. The fight for a free Cuba has gone on for far too long.
If you want a president who will make things better in the African-American community, you are looking at him. You take a look!
That said, your values will not always be the object of public admiration. In fact, the more you live by your beliefs, the more you will endure the censure of the world.
Religious freedom opens a door for Americans that is closed to too many others around the world. But whether we walk through that door, and what we do with our lives after we do, is up to us.
Republicans prefer straight talk to politically correct talk!
It's time for the party of big ideas, not the party of Big Brother!
If you believe the disappointments - if you believe the disappointments in the last few years are a detour and not our destiny, then I'm asking for your vote.
President Obama orders religious organizations to violate their conscience. I will defend religious liberty and overturn regulations that trample on our first freedom.
I don't want to transform America. I want to restore to America the economic values of freedom and opportunity and limited government that has made us the powerhouse of the world.
If we become one of those societies that attack success, why not come as certain there will be a lot less success? And that's not who we are.
Now workers should have the right to join unions. But unions should not be forced upon workers. And unions should not have the power to take money our of their members' paychecks to buy the support of politicians that are favored by the union bosses.
What does it say about a president's policies when he has to use a cartoon character rather than real people to justify his record? What does it say about the fiction of old liberalism to insist that good jobs and good schools and good wages will result from policies that have failed us, time and again?
Culture, what you believe, what you value, how you live matters. Now, as fundamental as these principles are, they may become topics of democratic debates from time to time, so it is today with the enduring institution of marriage. Marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman.
What we have, what we wish we had - ambitions fulfilled, ambitions disappointed, investments won, investments lost, elections won, elections lost - these things may occupy our attention, but they do not define us.
Our worldly successes cannot be guaranteed, but our ability to achieve spiritual success is entirely up to us, thanks to the grace of God. The best advice I know is to give is to give those worldly things your best but never your all - reserve the ultimate hope for the only one who can grant it.
I will promote savings and investment by maintaining the 15% rate on capital gains and dividends. I will eliminate the tax entirely for those with annual income below $200,000.
If I am elected President, the Castro regime will have no reason to doubt our unwavering commitment to your cause. The regime will feel the full weight of American resolve.
Since Castro took power, the Cuban people have been denied basic human freedoms. No freedom of religion, no freedom of the press, no political freedom. And the regime uses brutality and violence to suppress these freedoms and impose its will.
Moral certainty, clear standards, and a commitment to spiritual ideals will set you apart in a world that searches for meaning.
It strikes me as odd that the free exercise of religious faith is sometimes treated as a problem, something America is stuck with instead of blessed with.
No person I have ever met, not even the most righteous or pure of heart, has gone without those times when faith recedes in the busy-ness of life.
Democrats want to use the slowdown as an excuse to do what their special interests are always begging for: higher taxes, bigger government and less trade with other nations.
I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that's the America millions of Americans believe in. That's the America I love.
Now, let me be clear. The path I lay out is not one paved with ever increasing government checks and cradle to grave assurance that government will always be the solution. If this election is a bidding war for who can promise the most goodies and the most benefits, I'm not your president. You have that president today.
