I've never struggled with that at all....in the state of Texas, if you come into our state and you kill one of our children, you kill a police officer, you're involved with another crime and you kill one of our citizens, you will face the ultimate justice in the state of Texas, and that is, you will be executed.

We stand up and proudly proclaim that Washington is not our caretaker and we reject a state, in Margaret Thatcher's words, a state that takes too much from us to do too much for us.

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 believe in America. I believe in her purpose and her promise. I believe her best days have not yet been lived. I believe her greatest deeds are reserved for the generations to come.

It takes balls to execute an innocent man.

When you look around the world, every place that socialism has been implemented, it has failed miserably, destroying the economy, freedom and - in Germany, the Soviet Union and other nations - millions of lives.

I come by my conservatism authentically, not by convenience. And I offer the American people a new direction.