I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington...I’m asking you to believe in yours.

If you want some additional money for your school, we'll give it to you. But you've got to compete, show us that you're going to reform your education system so that our children are performing better.

We ask for nothing more than the chance to blaze our own trail, and yet each of us is only here because somebody, somewhere, helped us find our path. That`s part of what makes America exceptional. We are family and we`ll do anything to help each other along the way.

When people are oppressed, and human rights are denied - particularly along sectarian lines or ethnic lines - when dissent is silenced, it feeds violent extremism, it creates an environment that is ripe for terrorists to exploit. When peaceful, democratic change is impossible, it feeds into the terrorist propaganda that violence is the only answer available.

There's no doubt that on the issue of abortion, oftentimes it's very difficult to split the difference, although we can agree on the notion that none of us are pro-abortion and all of us would like to see a reduction in unwanted pregnancies, for example, and we could focus on those issues.

Al Qaeda is still a threat. We cannot pretend somehow that because Barack Hussein Obama got elected as president, suddenly everything is going to be OK.

[Afghanistan and Iraq] are still countries that are fragile enough that we're gonna have to partner with them in some way.