I believe our foreign assistance should be scrutinized, should be debated, and that we should strike the right balance, but in all cases the foreign assistance that we provide around the world should be used to further our national security interests.

Barack Obama's life was so much simpler in 2009. Back then, he had refined the cold act of blaming others for the bad economy into an art form. Deficits? Blame Bush's tax cuts. Spending? Blame the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. No business investment? Blame Wall Street.

Nothing panics politicians like $4 a gallon gas.

Not since the steam engine has any invention disrupted business models like the Internet. Whole industries including music distribution, yellow-pages directories, landline telephones, and fax machines have been radically reordered by the digital revolution.

When Obama gutted Medicare by taking $717 billion out of it, the Romney plan does not do that. The Ryan plan mimicked part of the Obama package there, the Romney plan does not. That's a big difference.

You walk into any supermarket or any shopping mall and ask the public what they are worried about. Not one of them will tell you they are worried about 12 years of Mitt Romney's tax returns.

Growing up, I was encouraged to get a good education, get a real job doing something I enjoyed, and, should the opportunity present itself, consider public service as just that: a chance to serve, not an end in itself.