I said those things about gay rights and abortion on opposite day. I cannot BELIEVE you don't have opposite day in North Carolina!

In order to be able to fulfill our role in the world, America must be strong. America must lead. And for that to happen, we have to strengthen our economy here at home.

I know what it takes to balance budgets. I have done it my entire life.

Our nation is too different, too diverse to say that what works in Massachusetts is somehow going to be grabbed by the federal government, usurping the power of states and imposing a one-size-fits-all plan on the nation. That will not work.

We will achieve North America energy independence by 2020, by taking full advantage of our oil, our gas, our coal, our renewables and our nuclear power. Abundant, inexpensive, domestic energy will not only create energy jobs, it will bring back manufacturing jobs.

In the political environment that exists today, the opposition research of the Obama campaign is looking for anything they can use to distract from the failure of the president to reignite our economy. And Im simply not enthusiastic about giving them hundreds or thousands of more pages to pick through, distort, and lie about.

This, in my view, is the highest responsibility of the President of the United States, which is to maintain the safety of the American people.