Well, one of the things a lot of Americans don't know, when Mitt Romney is nominated a few days from now, he will be the most experienced executive to be nominated for the presidency since Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, who had run a university and had run the allied war effort. That's actually a big deal.

Ask yourself if these Democrats still speak for you. When they say we have a duty to grow government even when we can't afford it, does it sound like compassion to you - or recklessness?

Wearing a Democratic label no longer matches what I know about my country and its possibilities.

Sure, there's a chunk of African-Americans out there who associate the Republican Party with racism, frankly particularly in the Deep South. It's an unfair perception, but it exists. Over a period time, that perception will die away if Republicans are focusing on issues that happen to impact African-Americans.

Now, America is a land of second chances, and I gather you have room for the estimated 6 million of us who know we got it wrong in 2008 and who want to fix it.

When you hear the party that glorified Occupy Wall Street blast success; when you hear them minimize the genius of the men and women who make jobs out of nothing, is that what you teach your children about work?

I think the most overused words in our vocabulary in the South are black and white.