I didn't say I was running, did I?

I got a feeling that after six years of disappointment, of mediocrity and decline, a slow course correction is not what voters are going to be looking for in 2016.

Being the governor of a state is a more pivotal job in the future. I do indeed hope there's someone that says, "I'm going to go to Washington, try to get back to our constitutional roots, devolve the centralization of government back to the states." So why would you want to be up there if the action is down here in the states?

It takes balls to execute an innocent man.

I stand before you as the governor of Texas but also stand before you the son of two tenant farmers. Ray Perry who came home after 35 bombing missions over Europe to work his little corner of land out there and Amelia who made sure that my sister Milla and I had everything that we needed, included hand sewing my clothes until I went off to college.

It's a Tenth Amendment issue. If you want Washington, if you want to implement their standards, that's your call... We certainly had higher standards than Common Core, so it was a very easy decision for Texans, myself and the legislature included, to basically say we still believe that Texans know how to best run Texas.

I don't think we've ever had a president who has more disdain for Washington than Barack Obama does, and he does things with executive orders or rules that you don't even see.