Three of the last four [elections], '06, '08, and '12, were disastrous for Republicans. And they were years in which we just we stayed quiet, we went along the get-along, we didn't stand on principle. The only year that was a good year for Republicans was 2010, when we painted in bold colors, not in pale pastels. We stood for principle. I think winning this fight right now is the most important thing we can do to see significant victories in 2014.

I get that the media wants us to play theater critics and critique every other proposal. What I`m focusing on are my own policy proposals.

I think too many politicians are not listening to the men and women they represent, and if we're going to change the path America is on, we have got to be fighting for policies not that benefit the giant corporations and the banks and the special interests and the lobbyists, which is what Washington focuses on every day, but instead every policy needs to focus on the working men and women, the truck drivers and the steelworkers, and the young people.

We don't have a system that knocks on doors of every person in America.

Two-thirds of Americans think our kids will have a worse life than we did. That is a powerful indication we are on the wrong path. I think we can change that, but I'll tell you, that's what I'm going to fight to do, and the reason so many grass-roots activists poured so much into it is they believed in our country. They believed in liberty.

That's what actually caused me to run for office is, you know, my family story, the experience of growing up in a family where your dad had been imprisoned, had been tortured, and came to America with nothing, washing dishes for 50 cents an hour. That was perhaps the most formative experience of my childhood, is being raised in that household where freedom had an urgency.

When people are motivated by principles larger than themselves, you don't have to beat them over the head to get them to act. You simply empower them, you inform them, you give them tools, and they take it upon themselves to act.