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.

I'm not trying to return to Reagan-Bush.

My doctrine is as I've described, which is confidence in our cause, clarity in our purpose, and resolve in our might.

The path I lay out is not one paved with ever increasing government checks and cradle to grave assurance that government will always be the solution. If this election is a bidding war for who can promise the most goodies and the most benefits, I'm not your president. You have that president today.

We have a potentially volatile situation but we sort of live with it, and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it.

In order to change the direction of this country, we need to change presidents. Americans need a conservative businessman to get this economy moving again, not career politicians. That is why I am running. Next week, I will lay out my specific plan to put America back to work.

We still believe in the America that is a land of opportunity and a beacon of freedom. We believe in the America that challenges each of us to be better and bigger than ourselves.