We need to have strong allies. Our association and connection with our allies is essential to America's strength. We're the great nation that has allies, 42 allies and friends around the world.

A Pakistan that falls apart, becomes a failed state, would be of extraordinary danger to Afghanistan and to America.

Reforming the way the state works with businesses and providing incentives for employers will help preserve and create new jobs in Massachusetts.

That business we started with 10 people has now grown into a great American success story. Some of the companies we helped start are names you know. An office supply company called Staples – where I’m pleased to see the Obama campaign has been shopping; The Sports Authority, which became a favorite of my sons. We started an early childhood learning center called Bright Horizons that First Lady Michelle Obama rightly praised. At a time when nobody thought we’d ever see a new steel mill built in America, we took a chance and built one in a corn field in Indiana.

When the President is making it harder to mine coal, to use coal, to take advantage of our gas resources, to make it harder to get our oil resources - all those things combine to make our cost of energy higher than it needs to be, and it drives away enterprises from this country. It sends it to places that have lower-cost energy.

Our economy is on the move and we are creating thousands of new jobs, but we need to keep our foot on the gas pedal.

President Obama trusts in the wisdom of government. I put my trust in the ingenuity and creativity and commitment to hard work of the American people.