I think if you look at almost every year under every president over the last, I don't know, 20, 30 years, you're going to be hard-pressed to find a year in which the majority of Americans thought we were on the right track.

We've got to stop the name-calling and we've got to stop looking at the next election. We've got to be focused on figuring out what we're doing for the next generation.

We've now got a group of young people in this country who for all practical purposes are American. They grew up here. They've gone to school here. They don't know anything other than being American kids. But their parents may have brought them here without all the proper paperwork - might have brought them here when they were three, might have brought them here when they were five. And so, lo and behold, by the time they finish school, and they're ready to go to college, they find out they can't go to college and, in fact, their status as Americans are threatened.

Now is not the time to gut these job-creating investments in science and innovation. Now is the time to reach a level of research and development not seen since the height of the Space Race.

The problem is that, over time, big pieces of business that have to get done without leadership from Washington, don't get done.

You may want to prove that you're worthy of other kids or neighbors who were wealthier than you and teased you. You may want to prove that you're worthy of high expectations. But I do think that there is a youthful ambition that very much has to do with making your mark in the world. And I think that cuts across the experiences of a lot of people who end up achieving something significant in their field.

You now have the potential of 200 people deciding who ends up being elected president every single time.