Instead of focusing on growing jobs and reigniting our economy, President Obama focused on growing government and tried to remake the United States into the image of the debt-laden countries of Europe. His approach has been more spending, more regulation, and higher taxes.

I saw the government really using the excuse of a weak economy and a financial crisis to create more government and to push onto the American entrepreneurial society more and more restraints and government activity.

I think what people are looking for right now is not the kind of pizzazz and pop that perhaps we thought we got in 2008. Certainly, President Obama offered that. What they want now is someone who can work closely with Congress and get things done.

If you can't even acknowledge that you have to fix Social Security, that's not a very good starting point.

The problem is that this round from its inception has had agriculture at its centerpiece. The EU and the U. S. and other WTO members cannot wish that away, that is a reality.

That isn't how I've always felt. As a congressman, and more recently as a senator, I opposed marriage for same-sex couples. Then something happened that led me to think through my position in a much deeper way.

President Obama likes to talk about the Buffett Rule. Well, here's a Buffett Rule that all Americans should be able to support: mom and pop businesses should not pay a higher tax rate than Fortune 500 corporations like Warren Buffett's.