United States Presidential Candidates 2008

"He set up a command center and searched through the night. The man who helped save my daughter was Mitt Romney. Mitt's done a lot of things that people say are nearly impossible. But for me, the most important thing he's ever done is to help save my daughter."

"I'll send him the nickels, and I think it's a nickel a page..."

"I know that Governor Romney made a powerful case here and, frankly, Governor Romney in his business career created more jobs than the entire Obama Cabinet combined, so he could actually talk about it."

"When I look at where we are as a nation and the challenges we face, I am convinced that Mitt Romney will provide a clear contrast to President Obama. Whether it was creating jobs in business, rescuing the Olympics, or turning around Massachusetts' $3 billion budget deficit, he has proved, time and again, that he excels at turning around difficult situations. He has also proposed a bold economic plan that will help families that have been crushed by President Obama's failed policies. With his plan to create more jobs, reduce our debt, and scale back the size of government, America will be back on the road to prosperity. I'm proud to support Mitt Romney and encourage all those who worry about our country's future to do the same."

"Over the last few months, it has been absolutely stunning to see Mitt Romney, of all people, portrayed as some sort of greedy, ruthless, unfeeling corporate raider who plows over everyone who gets in his way so he can make a few dollars more. Of all the criticisms you could aim at Mitt Romney, there is none that has less validity than that one."

"Romney is a turnaround specialist. He knows how to prioritize tasks. This contrasts with President Obama’s disinterested approach to the failing economy."

"You can't be a perfectly lubricated weather vane on the important issues of the day, whether it's Libya, whether it's the debt ceiling, whether it's the discussion around the Kasich bill in Ohio, where Gov. Romney has been missing in action in terms of showing any kind of leadership."

"Given the choice between a Christian like Barack Obama, who embraces non-Biblical principles like abortion, and a Mormon like Mitt Romney, who embraces Biblical principles, there is every reason to support Mitt Romney in this election."

"Bain Capital and Romney delivered spectacularly well for their customers, better than other [private equity] firms that on average outperformed the public markets. Today, those customers include the California State Teachers’ Retirement System and the Teacher Retirement System of Texas."

"I am pro-choice. My opponent is multiple choice."

"There has never been as much positive publicity about the church...thanks to the wonderful campaign of Mitt Romney and his family. Everybody is looking at us and saying, 'Are you as good as the Romneys?' Today we see the church coming out of obscurity, and we see that 90 percent of what has been written and said … 90 percent of it has been favorable. And that's a great tribute to Mitt and Ann."

"I'm a Republican voting for Mitt Romney, you lazy bitches is fucking up the econ'my."

"Michael Moore: Mitt Romney is going to raise more money than Barack Obama. That should guarantee his victory. It's sort of like the vote is— Josh Zepps: Do you think it will? Michael: Which answer do you want? Josh: The true one. Michael: The true one? Well, the guy who was an optimist sitting here two minutes ago, I guess that was me? I think people should start to practice the words "President Romney". To assume that the other side are just a bunch of ignoramuses who are supported by people who believe that Adam and Eve rode on dinosaurs 6,000 years ago is to completely misjudge the opposition, and they not only are smart, they are dedicated, they are disciplined, they have the courage of their convictions, they say exactly what they think (which we've been entertained by)..."

"Right about Putin, right about Obama, right about Trump."

"In the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign, Republican nominee Mitt Romney, asked about corporate personhood, replied as if it was a given, saying "corporations are people," like it was a science fact he learned in fifth grade. This is no mere throwaway line. Billions of dollars of litigating, advertising, marketing, and corporatist commentary have been focused on driving this "people" image into our minds from childhood."

"There are some things where Governor Romney is different from George Bush. You know, George Bush didn't propose turning Medicare into a voucher. George Bush embraced comprehensive immigration reform. He didn't call for self-deportation. George Bush never suggested that we eliminate funding for . So there are differences between Governor Romney and George Bush, but they're not on economic policy. In some ways he's gone to a more extreme place when it comes to social policy. I think that's a mistake."

"Fortunately we had a model to work with, one that, ironically, had grown out of a partnership between Ted Kennedy and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, one of John McCain's opponents in the Republican primary for president. Confronting budget shortfalls and the prospect of losing Medicaid funding a few years earlier, Romney had become fixated on finding a way to get more Massachusetts residents properly insured, which would then reduce state spending on emergency care for the uninsured and, ideally, lead to a healthier population in general...Touting the plan to reporters, Romney called the individual mandate "the ultimate conservative idea" because it promoted personal responsibility."

"That's one of the things that I like about him — because he's been consistent since he changed his mind."

"That is why I am endorsing Mitt Romney in his quest for the presidency. We can't afford four more years in which national debt mushrooms out of control, our government grows, and our military is weakened. Mitt has the background, experience, intelligence and integrity to turn things around. He has my absolute support."

"There's a real difference between venture capitalism and vulture capitalism. Venture capitalism we like. Vulture capitalism, no. And the fact of the matter is that he's going to have to face up to this at some time or another, and South Carolina is as good a place to draw that line in the sand as any."

"Ronnie would have liked Governor Romney's business background and his strong principles, and I have to say I do too. I believe Mitt Romney has the experience and leadership skills that our country so desperately needs, and I look forward to seeing him elected president in November."

"[W]e hear a very different narrative from Barack Obama and the Democrats than we do from Mitt Romney, with Mitt Romney's narrative being usually harsh, scary, selfishness on steroids, and the Democratic narrative being warm and fuzzy and we're all in this together, let's just wait for things to get better."

"I first met Mitt Romney in the fall of 1985 when he took a chance on me and my idea to sell discount office supplies. Together we then worked to found Staples. From the very beginning, I saw that he was super-frugal. He didn't want to pay more than he had to for things like paper clips. That was the idea behind Staples. And for Mitt, cutting costs and running things well has been a consistent animating idea, whether he's been in business or government or running the Olympics."

"But what most voters don't know is the way Mitt Romney actually made his fortune: by borrowing vast sums of money that other people were forced to pay back. This is the plain, stark reality that has somehow eluded America's top political journalists for two consecutive presidential campaigns: Mitt Romney is one of the greatest and most irresponsible debt creators of all time. In the past few decades, in fact, Romney has piled more debt onto more unsuspecting companies, written more gigantic checks that other people have to cover, than perhaps all but a handful of people on planet Earth."

"Mitt is tough. He is smart. He is sharp. He is not going to allow bad things to continue to happen to this country that we all love. So Gov. Romney, go out and get em. You can do it."

"Mitt Romney is a mixed up man who doesn't have a clue. No wonder he lost!"

"Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania: Done."

"I wish you to be successful, because this success is needed to the United States, of course, but to Europe and the rest of the world, too. Gov. Romney, get your success — be successful!"

"In my lifetime, Mitt Romney is the most qualified leader I've ever seen run for the Presidency of the United States…Let's take him for a minute… Harvard Law School, Harvard MBA. Starts up , builds it… Bain gets in trouble sometime in 1990s, Mitt comes back to fix it… Bain Capital then has its best years ever. In '99, leaves, goes to the Olympics, I was involved in that… we were in deep trouble. They were losing money, they had a scandal… and then 9/11 comes and everyone wants to cancel it, we've got a big commitment. He goes out there, fixes it totally. Again, fixes that up, comes back, runs for governor, wins the governorship. The government [is in debt]. He gets it out and gets a surplus. Who! We haven't had anybody do all these things! Do you think Richard Nixon did that? Do you think Bill Clinton had those credentials!? Certainly Barack Obama didn't have those credentials!.. I mean, come on! We've got a guy here who's a leader, that's demonstrated beyond anyone we've ever had! Great family. This is the…! We're the luckiest people in the world to have this guy there at this point in time."

"I'm just trying to protect my stacks / Mitt Romney don't pay no tax / Mitt Romney don't pay no tax"

"His favorite cut, the Romney crop / Cuts everything but the very top / The 1% of the 1% / When he said "the people", well that's what he meant / Like Robin Hood, 'cept opposite / That's Romney, Mitt / The Demon Barber of Wall Street"

"Isn't he a huge business success that knows what he's talking about? No he isn't. His bankruptcies have crushed small businesses and the men and women who worked for them. He inherited his business, he didn't create it. And what ever happened to ? How about ? And then there's Trump Magazine and and , and ? A business genius he is not."

"This combines a couple of things I like best — cars and sport."

"Not as closely as some of the most ardent fans. But I have some great friends that are NASCAR team owners."

"America needs a president who can fix the economy because he understands the economy, and I do and I will."

"I see an America where poverty is defeated by opportunity, not enabled by a government check."

"In Barack Obama's government-centered society, government spending always increases because, well, why not? There's always someone who's entitled to something more and who's willing to vote for anyone who will give them something more."

"I think there is in this country a war on religion. I think there is a desire to establish a religion in America known as secularism. And I know that, based on reports, that the Obama administration gave this a lot of thought – a lot of discussion. This was not some little side issue that no one thought about. They gave it a lot of thought, and they decided to say that in this country that a church — in this case, the Catholic Church — would be required to violate its principles and its conscience and be required to provide contraceptives, sterilization, and morning after pills to the employees of the church. And that came as a shock. As I think it was Mike Huckabee said, "We are now all Catholics." Those of us who are people of faith recognize this is — an attack on one religion is an attack on all religion."

"I wanted to increase the work requirement. I said, for instance, that even if you have a child 2 years of age, you need to go to work. And people said, "Well, that's heartless." And I said, "No, no, I'm willing to spend more giving day care to allow those parents to go back to work. It'll cost the state more providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.""

"You know, I think you see a model here in Arizona. They passed a law here that says — that says that people who come here and try and find work, that the employer is required to look them up on . This E-Verify system allows employers in Arizona to know who's here legally and who's not here legally. And as a result of E-Verify being put in place, the number of people in Arizona that are here illegally has dropped by some 14 percent, where the national average has only gone down 7 percent. So going back to the question that was asked, the right course for America is to drop these lawsuits against Arizona and other states that are trying to do the job Barack Obama isn't doing."

"We know that this election is about the kind of America we will live in and the kind of America we will leave to future generations. When it comes to the character of America, President Obama and I have very different visions. Government is at the center of his vision. It dispenses the benefits, borrows what it cannot take, and consumes a greater and greater share of the economy. With Obamacare fully installed, government will come to control half the economy, and we will have effectively ceased to be a free enterprise society. This President is putting us on a path where our lives will be ruled by bureaucrats and boards, commissions and czars. He's asking us to accept that Washington knows best – and can provide all."

"But from the beginning, this nation trusted in God, not man. Religious liberty is the first freedom in our Constitution. And whether the cause is justice for the persecuted, compassion for the needy and the sick, or mercy for the child waiting to be born, there is no greater force for good in the nation than Christian conscience in action."

"I'm not familiar precisely with what I said, but I'll stand by what I said, whatever it was."

"The fact is that I spent twenty-five years in the private sector. And that obviously teaches you something that you don't learn if you haven't spent any time in the private sector. If you were to say to me, tell me what you learned from your schooling that would help you be a President, it's like, well, how do I begin going through a list like that? You learn through life's experience. The President's experience has been exclusively in politics and as a community organizer. Both of those are fine areas of endeavor. But right now we have an economy in trouble, and someone who spent their career in the economy is more suited to help fix the economy than someone who spent his life in politics and as a community organizer."

"It's also a symbol of a serious conflict of interest. An independent inspector general looked at this investment and concluded that the administration had steered money to friends and family – to campaign contributors. This building, this half a billion dollar taxpayer investment, represents a serious conflict of interest on the part of the president and his team."

"[Obama] wants another stimulus, he wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more fireman, more policeman, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It's time for us to cut back on government and help the American people."

"Well I'm not sure which ones you're talking about, but I can tell you the people who have looked at the charges that the Obama campaign comes out with, which is that somehow we outsourced jobs, they've said that those were false and misleading. That the ads are inaccurate. Some have given it multiple Pinocchios. The president keeps on trying to divert any attention he can from his failure to turn around the American economy, and that's what this campaign's about. But the president keeps on trying to find something about Bain which is simply not true. And I left Bain in February of 1999. People can point out how - I was in Salt Lake City for three straight years. I don't recall even coming back once to go to a Bain or management meeting. We were, I was out there running the Olympics and it was a full time job, I can tell you that."

"The idea to say that Steve Jobs didn't build Apple, that Henry Ford didn't build Ford Motor, that Papa John didn't build Papa John Pizza, that Ray Kroc didn't build McDonald's, that Bill Gates didn't build Microsoft, you go on the list, that Joe and his colleagues didn't build this enterprise, to say something like that is not just foolishness, it is insulting to every entrepreneur, every innovator in America and it's wrong."

"You Olympians, however, know you didn't get here solely on your own power. For most of you, loving parents, sisters or brothers, encouraged your hopes, coaches guided, communities built venues in order to organize competitions. All Olympians stand on the shoulders of those who lifted them."

"Paul Ryan combines a profound sense of responsibility for what we owe the next generation with an unbounded optimism in America's future and an understanding of all the wonderful things the American people can do. Paul also combines firm principles with a practical concern for getting things done. He has never been content to simply curse the darkness; he would rather light candles. And throughout his legislative career he's shown the ability to work with members of both parties to find common ground on some of the hardest issues confronting the American people."