Remarks in Colorado Following the Nevada Caucuses

[remarks joined in progress]

-- for your support, your endorsement, your kind words. It is great to be here in Weld County, it is great to be here. I have been told that this is something I can now hold over my former colleague in the Senate, John Thune.

Prior to tonight, Thune drew the biggest crowd, but we have 640 tonight which is understand sets the record so I'm going to take credit for that. Thank you. [applause]

Many of you have noticed that I had a different neckwear on when I first walked around. But they told me they want to auction off this tie. So I -- and they wanted me to wear it. So here I am wearing the tie. I will now take it off and sign the tie, and then you folks -- I'll do it right here in front of everybody.

You want me to sign it on the back or the front? The back. OK, I didn't -- I didn't know whether you wanted a signature tie or one on the back. So we'll sign it right here in front of God and country. There we go. OK, now it's worth probably a nickel or dime more than it was before.

So all right. Thank you all very much. And it's great to be here in Colorado. It's, I think, our second day of campaigning here in the last week. We -- I was out on the western slope this morning and they didn't have any snow over there. I was sort of surprised, we all, but we were very pleased when we flew in from Missouri last night.

And we had a great crowd there this morning and another great crowd over at Loveland and now here. And I just want to thank you for the warm reception that we have received. This is a reception, frankly, we've been receiving across this country. I think folks are beginning to get excited about the real challenge that you all have.

We're down to the four candidates, three of which have won a state, probably three of which have a chance to get the nomination. It's down to crunch time. And you've got to make a tough decision. There's some good people up there. Friends of mine in some cases, people I've known, in the case of Newt Gingrich, for 20 years.

And you've got to make a tough decision. And the decision has to come down to really two things -- who's the best person to do what must be done for this country first? And that's to defeat Barack Obama, right? [applause]

And, secondly, who do you trust? Who do you trust that's going to have the conviction, the principles, the courage to go out and do the job in a town that doesn't want change, in a town and in a world that likes to go along to get along?

Who do you trust that's going to go there with the strong moral convictions, with the strong ethical convictions, with the strong convictions about what is right for this country, to do the job that is necessary, to shrink the size of government back to its constitutional framework, to stand up for the values of this country, of faith and family, and to make sure that America is again respected by our allies and trusted by our allies and in fact feared by our enemies? [applause]

This is the job you have. And in a few days you're going to step through a step in the process to let America know what Colorado thinks.

Who shares Colorado's values? A lot has been said about winning this election, and the first thing we have to do is win this election. I agree. But a lot of people have said, well, you know, we have to go with the guy that has the most money or is the most moderate in order to win the election.

That was the siren song we heard a long time in this -- in Republican circles. We heard it back in 1976, when we chose Gerry Ford over Ronald Reagan. We heard it four years later, when those supported George Bush over Reagan. We heard it in '96 when we nominated Bob Dole and just four years ago we nominated John McCain.

We need to nominate someone who's -- can appeal to the middle, someone who can win.

Ladies and gentlemen, when we've nominated people who don't stand for the values that make this Republican Party what it is, who don't have the courage of their convictions, who aren't well oiled weathervanes, who are not people that have -- that will make the race about them and their character but will make the race about Barack Obama and his failure as a president, then we will not win this election.

We will win this election if we have someone who goes out and paints bold contrasts, someone that America trusts to do what in our heart we know needs to be done, to get Washington under control.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you look at the candidates in this race, it is no longer really a question as to who can beat Barack Obama. If you look at the polls today, one came out at Rasmussen, had Governor Romney trailing President Obama by 3 points and had me defeating Barack Obama by 1 point. [applause]

We still have a ways to go in name recognition across this country. I'm not a household name like Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. We have potential to grow, to improve our standing upwardly. We don't have the high negatives. We've kept this campaign on a high plain. I didn't engage in petty personal politics. I had many opportunities -- [applause] -- I had many opportunities to take shots at Governor Romney for the way he conducted himself in business. I had many opportunities to take shots at Speaker Gingrich for the same. But, ladies and gentlemen, this race isn't about that. It is about big issues.

It's not just about jobs. Everyone talks about jobs as being the number one issue. Yes, it's an important issue, but I think each and every one of us knows, particularly if you were involved in the election two years ago, particularly if you are a member of a Tea Party, you know that there's something bigger at stake in America today.

It's not just about the economy, it not just about jobs. It's something more foundational. It's something bigger. We all know that Barack Obama and the Left in America doesn't see America the same way that you do. They see America as a country that is in decline. They see America as a country that needs to be managed.

Look at what he's doing to the Defense Department. He's gutting it. He's managing the decline of the military in order to fund a welfare state, to provide for people. Why? Because, of course, they believe that you need to be taken care of.

Look at ObamaCare, the signature issue in this campaign. It is destroying -- already it is harming the economy. Just the uncertainty that ObamaCare has on the horizon is constricting business, that uncertainty of what the cost and regulatory burden of ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank and so many other things that this president has in mind is creating instability in the marketplace.

You have a bill with ObamaCare that says that Washington knows best how to manage your health, how to provide for you. Is that the America that transformed the world? Is this the America that said that we need government to control your lives, that we need government to tell you how much you can spend on health care and what plans you're going to have and what fines you'll pay if you don't?

Ladies and gentlemen, this issue isn't just about health care, it's about freedom. [applause]

Barack Obama has tried to tell you that he can give you the right to health care. Is that where our rights come from, ladies and gentlemen, from the government? No, see, we're different than every other country in the history of the world. Every other country in the history of the world rights came to you from the king or the emperor or the government. But not in America. America, we are different. We are different. It's why the Left in America so much wants to transform us away from our founding principles. That's why they don't want it taught in our schools. But America is different because we were founded different. We are a great country because, from the very beginning of our country, from that very first declaration America was different.

Barack Obama does not believe that. He said about nine months ago, in commenting on Paul Ryan's budget, he listed a whole host of entitlement programs, from unemployment insurance to Medicaid. And he said this, he said "America is a better country because of these commitments." Reading from his teleprompter, he said -- [laughter]

This was not an off-the-cuff line. This was something thought about, worked on and delivered. He said, "I'll go one step further. America was not a great country until these commitments."

According to the President of the United States, America became a great country when the government of this country took money from you, sent it to Washington and redistributed it to those who they believed were more worthy of the money than the people who made it. You see, Barack Obama doesn't understand that America was born great. [applause]

In that Declaration of Independence and these words that make America what it is -- exceptional -- our founders wrote "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Those words is what makes America America, that we are -- [applause]

It makes us different than any every other country because rights we recognize from our very foundation do not come from government. They come from a Higher Power. They come from God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that -- [applause] -- and the government's one responsibility in drafting the Constitution, our founders believed the one responsibility of the Constitution, which is a great document, it is the operator's manual for America, and its job is to protect those freedoms so you, each and every one of you, your ancestors going back, could have the freedom and the opportunity to be able to provide for themselves, to be able to reap the fruits of their labor, be able to form families, churches, communities and build a great and just society, not from the top down but from the bottom up. [applause]

We are at a point in this country where that basic fact of America is in jeopardy. If we do not defeat this president, we do not repeal ObamaCare, we do not roll back all of these other government intrusions into the markets and into the lives of people and families, then we will be the generation that lost face with America.

We will be the generation, we will be the stewards who dropped the ball. And this country will be forever changed.

Margaret Thatcher, when she was prime minister of England, said she was never able to accomplish what Reagan accomplished in America in transforming statist Britain back to its freedom, its glory days of believing in people.

And she said the reason was the British national health care system. Once people become addicted and dependent upon the government for their health, there is nothing the government will not be able to extract from you. If you want to care -- [applause] -- and she was right. Look at the Conservative Party in Britain today. It is to the left of the Democratic Party in America. Do you wonder why Nancy Pelosi and all these House and Senate Democrats were willing to March off the cliff to pass ObamaCare? Because they know that if it sticks, they'll all be back, and sooner than you think.

America will be different. America will no longer be the land of the free. Ladies and gentlemen, we need to have a candidate who can make the case to the American public as to who we are and how things work in this country, from education to health care., from financial services to the real estate market, that we believe in free people and free markets from bottom up, not top down. [applause]

How do we do that? Well, we have to have a candidate on the issues of the day that are the most important ones, who has a record that can draw contrasts with President Obama, someone who has a strong, consistent record on the big issues, like, well, let's take health care.

Anybody familiar with health savings accounts? [applause]

Every conservative running for office in Washington, D.C., runs and talks about the importance of health savings accounts. Why? Because it's a private sector market-driven approach to health reform. [applause]

John Kasich and I offered that 20 years ago and we were the first to do it. I've been an advocate for it for 20 years. I've been preaching free market economics on health care for 20 years. Let's look at the record of the other two people that have a chance to win this election.

Congressman Gingrich, for that same 20-year period of time, has advocated for a government mandate at the federal level to require each and every of you as a condition of being alive to buy insurance, which is the core of ObamaCare.

Governor Romney, worse yet, in the state of Massachusetts, passed the identical bill, virtually identical bill on a state level to ObamaCare. How can these two gentleman, as good as people as they are, how can they go before the American public, point out what's at stake in this election?

[remarks continue but no additional transcript is available]