We can't win - if we nominate someone - if we nominate someone that half of the Republican Party hates, we're going to be fighting against each other all the way to November [of 2016]. We will never win that way.

I am privileged to be a citizen of the single greatest society in all of human history.

Conservatives believe in traditional values. Not because we want to impose our views on anyone, but because to abandon those values would be to ignore our history. Americans are not the most generous people on earth because our laws make us generous. People do not contribute to charity in this country in record amounts because we have a tax break from it. We do so because this nation has been shaped by Judeo-Christian principles that teach us that we have an obligation to care for one another.

I think there's a growing amount of confusion about what conservatism is. And it is time for us to understand that conservatism is not built on personalities. Conservatism is not simply built on how angry you might seem from time to time. Conservatism is built on a set of principles and ideas that our nation desperately needs.

I do think that there has to be a legal solution, a legal solution on the part of the nation's legislative branch, an immigration proposal.

America is not perfect. It took a bloody civil war to free over 4 million African Americans who lived enslaved. It took another hundred years after that before they achieved full equality under the law.

I am prepared to discuss the things that I believe we need to do not just to raise the debt limit. Raising the debt limit is the easiest thing. That's one vote away. The hard thing is to show the world we are serious about putting our spending in order so we can show people we'll able to pay our bills down the road.