As Governor of Massachusetts, I chose a woman Lt. Governor, a woman chief of staff, half of my cabinet and senior officials were women, and in business, I mentored and supported great women leaders who went on to run great companies.
Some of the companies we helped start are names you know. An office supply company called Staples; The Sports Authority; an early childhood learning center called Bright Horizons that First Lady Michelle Obama rightly praised.
These are American success stories. And yet the centerpiece of the President's entire re-election campaign is attacking success. Is it any wonder that someone who attacks success has led the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression? In America, we celebrate success, we don't apologize for it.
We weren't always successful at Bain. But no one ever is in the real world of business. That's what this President doesn't seem to understand. Business and growing jobs is about taking risk, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding, but always striving. It is about dreams.
President Obama has thrown allies like Israel under the bus, even as he has relaxed sanctions on Castro's Cuba. He abandoned our friends in Poland by walking away from our missile defense commitments, but is eager to give Russia's President Putin the flexibility he desires, after the election. Under my administration, our friends will see more loyalty, and Mr. Putin will see a little less flexibility and more backbone.
We will honor America's democratic ideals because a free world is a more peaceful world. This is the bipartisan foreign policy legacy of Truman and Reagan. And under my presidency we will return to it once again.
That America, that united America, can unleash an economy that will put Americans back to work, that will once again lead the world with innovation and productivity.
That America, that united America, will preserve a military that is so strong, no nation would ever dare to test it.
That America, that united America, will uphold the constellation of rights that were endowed by our Creator, and codified in our Constitution.
That united America will care for the poor and the sick, will honor and respect the elderly, and will give a helping hand to those in need.
That America is the best within each of us. That America we want for our children.
The President has disappointed America because he hasn't led America in the right direction. He took office without the basic qualification that most Americans have and one that was essential to his task. He had almost no experience working in a business. Jobs to him are about government.
I learned the real lessons about how America works from experience. When I was 37, I helped start a small company. That business we started with 10 people has now grown into a great American success story.
My mom and dad gave their kids the greatest gift of all--the gift of unconditional love. They cared deeply about who we would BE, and much less about what we would DO. That's how I was brought up.
President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. MY promise...is to help you and your family.
I will begin my presidency with a jobs tour. President Obama began with an apology tour. America, he said, had dictated to other nations. No Mr. President, America has freed other nations from dictators.
We Americans have always felt a special kinship with the future. But today, four years from the excitement of the last election, for the first time, the majority of Americans now doubt that our children will have a better future. This was the hope and change America voted for. It's not just what we wanted. It's not just what we expected. It's what Americans deserved.
I wish President Obama had succeeded because I want America to succeed. But his promises gave way to disappointment and division. This isn't something we have to accept. Now is the moment when we CAN do something. With your help we will do something.
He stayed in Massachusetts after graduate school and got a job. I saw the long hours that started with that first job. I was there when he and a small group of friends talked about starting a new company. I was there when they struggled and wondered if the whole idea just wasn't going to work. Mitt's reaction was to work harder and press on. Today that company has become another great American success story.
Has it made those who started the company successful beyond their dreams? Yes, it has.
But because this is America, that small company which grew has helped so many others lead better lives. The jobs that grew from the risks they took have become college educations, first homes. That success has helped fund scholarships, pensions, and retirement funds. This is the genius of America: dreams fulfilled help others launch new dreams.
He did it in Massachusetts, where he guided a state from economic crisis to unemployment of just 4.7%.
Under Mitt, Massachusetts's schools were the best in the nation. The best. He started the John and Abigail Adams scholarships, which give the top 25% of high school graduates a four-year tuition-free scholarship.
This is the man America needs.
A storybook marriage? No, not at all. What Mitt Romney and I have is a real marriage. I know this good and decent man for what he is--warm and loving and patient.
He has tried to live his life with a set of values centered on family, faith, and love of one's fellow man. From the time we were first married, I've seen him spend countless hours helping others, and been there when late-night calls of panic came from a member of our church whose child had been taken to the hospital.
You may not agree with Mitt's positions on issues or his politics. But let me say this to every American who is thinking about who should be our next President: No one will work harder. No one will care more.
When Mitt and I met and fell in love, we were determined not to let anything stand in the way of our life together. I was an Episcopalian. He was a Mormon. We were very young. Both still in college. There were many reasons to delay marriage, and you know? We just didn't care. We got married and moved into a basement apartment. We walked to class together, shared the housekeeping, and ate a lot of pasta and tuna fish. Our desk was a door propped up on sawhorses. Our dining room table was a fold down ironing board in the kitchen.
That was 42 years ago. Now we have five sons and 18 grandchildren and I'm still in love with that boy I met at a high school dance.
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The above quotations are from Speeches at the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa FL, Aug. 28-31, 2012.
Click here for other excerpts from Speeches at the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa FL, Aug. 28-31, 2012. Click here for other excerpts by Mitt Romney. Click here for a profile of Mitt Romney.
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