Conservatism means re-embracing true free enterprise. True free enterprise, which I believe and not because my parents were wealthy, not because I inherited millions of dollars because I did not, but because as I walked on to the stage here today, I walked through the kitchen of this hotel and I met people and shook the hands of people who are doing the jobs my parents once did.

Conservatives aren't anti-immigrant - conservatives are pro-legal immigration.

For more than two generations, my family had never achieved their ambitions. Their talents were unappreciated and unused. They deserved better. They hadn't done anything wrong; they just had some bad breaks. Why was I succeeding? Why was I living my dreams? I wasn't more deserving than they were. I wasn't smarter or a better person. What was the difference between us that allowed me to attain so much in a short time? America. America was the difference. I had been born a citizen of the greatest nation in all of human history.

Let's stop big government energy mandates like cap-and-trade, and instead trust the American innovator to make us energy independent.

If you raise the minimum wage, you're going to make people more expensive than a machine.

The most important thing of all is my parents were able to leave all four of their children better off than themselves. That story has a name, it's called the American dream.

I run for president because I believe that we can't just save the American dream; we can expand it to reach more people and change more lives than ever before.