There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.
The American culture promotes personal responsibility, the dignity of work, the value of education, the merit of service, devotion to a purpose greater than self, and at the foundation, the pre-eminence of family.
Mr. Chairman, delegates. I accept your nomination for President of the United States of America. I do so with humility, deeply moved by the trust you have placed in me. It is a great honor. It is an even greater responsibility.
We believe in individual initiative, personal responsibility, opportunity, freedom, small government, the Constitution. These principles, these American principles are key to getting our economy back to being successful and leading the world.
This, in my view, is the highest responsibility of the President of the United States, which is to maintain the safety of the American people.
I absolutely believe that America has a responsibility, and the privilege of helping defend freedom and promote the principles that make the world more peaceful. And those principles include human rights, human dignity, free enterprise, freedom of expression, elections.
This is something the Democrats have talked about, and a goal we share, getting everyone insured, and solving the issue in a Republican way, which is applying a personal responsibility principle (individual mandate), reforming the market (more strictly regulating the insurance companies), and allowing people to buy private health care insurance that they can take with them from job to job that's entirely affordable. So it's a Republican way of solving a problem that we face as a nation.
Leadership - leadership is about taking responsibility, not making excuses.
I'm not going to just take office in January, I'm going to take responsibility.
