Remarks in Manchester Following the New Hampshire Primary

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you very very much. Thank you Dan and for all of the folks up here, I want to thank you very much for everything you have done here in New Hampshire.

We came up here just about ten days ago. The polls were having us about one or two percent. After Iowa, the most recent poll was three percent. We have, depending on your math, either ten times, five times or three times the -- where we started. And that's what we wanted to do.

We wanted to respect the process here. We wanted to respect the fact that we were going to campaign in every single state, states that, you know, were good for us and states that may be a little tougher. When you run in a state like New Hampshire that had a lot of folks here and spending a lot of time here, a lot of money -- we knew it would be tough.

But you know what? The message we have of going out and believing -- believing in the American people, believing that we needed to have opportunity, not just for some in America, but we needed someone who was going to go out and speak for all Americans to be able to have the opportunities to rise in society.

And we took that message here to New Hampshire. [inaudible] We took that message here to New Hampshire. We took it, talking about our manufacturing plan, talking about what we were going to do to grow this economy. And we took it to talk about faith and family as the bedrock of our society. [applause]

And by your work and the grassroots effort and the crowds we had, we built this campaign here in New Hampshire in just a very short period of time. We didn't spend a lot of money, but we put a lot of effort into this. And we put our message out there.

We came where the campaign was and we delivered a message not just for New Hampshire, but we delivered a message for America, that we have a campaign here -- yeah. [applause]

-- that we have a campaign that has a message and a messenger that can deliver what we need, which is, first and foremost, to defeat Barack Obama, number one. [applause]

The message, as I mentioned in Iowa, from the grandson of a coal miner, someone who believed deeply that the responsibility he had as someone who risked his life for a sovereign, a king -- when he served in the Austrian Army during World War I. And he fought on the Russian Front.

If it wasn't for the aid of a friend in the middle of the night crawling out from a foxhole and pulling my wounded grandfather back into the foxhole, I wouldn't be here today. He fought for someone who didn't care about him or his freedom or his children's freedom.

And so he came to America because he wanted to make sure that his children would be in a free country, and his grandchildren would be in a free country.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is our charge. And that is what is at stake in America today. [applause]

Let me assure you, he was not deferred by temporary setbacks. He believed in the greatness of the country. And he believed in the freedom of opportunity that this country presented. We're going to go on to South Carolina. For those -- [applause]

For those who would like to think that somehow or another that this race can be over in one or two states, states that have been -- well, let's say the backyard and the home of a certain candidate and who -- by the way, I want to absolutely congratulate Mitt Romney for a great victory tonight.

He worked hard in this state. He invested in this state. And the people of New Hampshire gave him a very hard earned victory.