i know we have to do better in these presidential elections. ..

>> working nonstop. we can't be a five-month parachute organization getting huge and raising a lot of money, dropping in, and expecting to succeed because you know what? we're the not running against john kerry and al gore anymore. this is a new world. two years ago, when i walked into the rnc, some of you may not know this, we had $26 million in debt. something i haven't shared a lot? you'd agree that the the rnc and knc are the two biggest political organizations in the world. when i walked in, both credit cards were suspended for nonpayment. we had 80 # employees in 2011. do you know how many barack obama had in florida? hundreds. if we're going to compete, we've

got to win on the ground. if we're going to compete, we have to be huge right now. that's what this project is about. we have to speak to people from the community in the community working in that community hiring the people from the community to speak to the people in that community. that's how you win elections. secondly, branding and markets. we don't tell people who we are anymore. we're the party of freedom, opportunity, and equality, but you wouldn't know it because we're not out there saying, but we're going to be. we're going to be educating people about what we believe in, what we're about, what the principles are, but it's not four months ahead of time. when's the last time there was fliers saying "i'm a republican because -- we have to protect the brand. it doesn't mather if you're for paul, ryan, rubio, martinez,

every one of these folks are going to have a big fat "r" next to their name that stands for republican, and we have to get that straight, our digital and data capabilities have to improve. i won't bore you with the campaign finances, but i'll assure you, the rnc has to be in the middle of it and improve and takes a lot of time and a lot of money and a lot of people to get on the same page, sharing data, big data is an endeavor for the party that we have to work at, and now we have the opportunity to do it. last thing i want to talk to you about. i happen to think the primary system, not the early states at all. i was the general council that made sure new hampshire was an early state carveout. i'm not talking about that. [applause] i am going to tell you what i am talking about. i think the slicing and dicing

has got to stop. we've got to grow. we've got to let people in the door. two things that i'm bent on fixing. number one, we cannot anymore allow moderators who are in the business of creating news make that news at the expense of our parties and our candidates. it's over. we're done. [applause] we're done. [applause] we're done with cooper suppose our candidates 234 front of national tv. [applause] second -- the second thing, some might say, wait a second, you missed shotgun big here. mitt romney never defended himself when all summer got to find, let me tell you what's going on.

this will be in the weeds just for a second. number one, there's primary money and general money. a few cycles ago, conventions started moving to the end of august, and they did that because the candidates want to shorten the period of time on which to rely on public financing so they could move later, later, and later. in this case, mitt romney goes through a bruising primary, out of primary money. he's sitting on millions and millions of dollars on the general election bucket in june, you he can't get it because the convention's in august. he is the proverbial duck in the pond that can't get to the money that's sitting in the campaign. that's why we're talking about moving the convention to the end of june. that's why we're talking about making sure that we have a say over who thed moderators are and

who the media partners are. it's not an establishment takeover. we're trying to -- we're trying to protect the candidates, the nominees, and the things we believe in, what we're celebrating tonight. look, you're all leaders in the party. you wouldn't be here. you have your own network. we want to do you proud, build a big party, a party that works with people, that shares da fa. we want to be a party that winning together. that's what we need to do. i want to tell you a little story as i close out here. i want to give you idea where my head and heart's at. i met with a person that was very helpful to our party. i won't share any names, but he's a very outspoken, we've all been through this, a month after the election, obviously, very frustrated, like we still are

today, and i sat down, talking about what do we need to do to get this party straight in the presidential elections? we sat down, very tough guy, and i knew it was an intimidating meeting. i got two minutes into it. he said, hang on a second, hang on, timeout. here's the deal. you're young, you're smart -- now, that's debatable, but he did say that -- he said, you're young, you're smart, if you want a job here, i'd love to have you, have a job down the hallway, but here's the thing, if you're not going to be big and you're not going to be bold, then don't waste my time. don't waste your kids' time. don't waste your wife's time. don't waste your life. we're all called to be big and bold. whoever did the prayer tonight, i thank you for that. i'm thankful for a party that

prays before we sit down and eat. [applause] we're all called to be big and bold. that's my pledge to you. you're all in it like me. it's not glory. it's a grind. it's a grind that we've all taken up because we want to have a country that returns itself to the principles that we're celebrating tonight. i'm honored to be here. i'm honored your chairman called p -- called months ago saying, listen, we're having a big dinner in new hampshire, and i'd love nothing more if you could get senator rand paul to come and kick off the new hampshire g.o.p., and we all did our best and fortunate and blessed to have you here, senator palm. it's a blessing. we're grateful for you and everything you've done for our party. [applause]

the last thing i'd say is that i'm also grateful that i'm going first because with a 13-hour filibuster, i'm not going to be here in the morning. thank you, god bless you. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, mr. chairman, thank you so much. one of the things i noticed when i first got here earlier, before any of you arrived, there were what felt like hundreds of media outlets sitting up in the room. what's the media here for? what could it possibly be, senator? we are -- i'm really very, very pleased that senator paul could be here today. i actually met him, and i president you don't remember

this, i would not expect you to. in 2007, still hosting a radio show down in nashua, a senator in town campaigning for his father, and we talked about his dad a lot, but i asked, so, what about you? do you think you'll ever run for office? i didn't think of president. i said, you ever going to run for office? he said, no, my dad's the politician in this family. [laughter] with all due respect, i think he was wearing those same genes -- jeans that day as well. [laughter] i'm pleased senator paul is here with us today. i'm a big believer that we cannot win if we do not bring in the party and embrace all the voices. you know, i say all the time, whatever draws you to the republican party, whatever part of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness inspires you, i want to fight with you for those values and principles, stand together, and senator paul is a great voice for that

imagine, a strong voice for limited government, balancing the budget, and in the last couple weeks, a leader in the fight against the administration on the irs, on benghazi -- [applause] he was the first person to go straight to go to the press and look him in the eye of the camera and say straight out hillary clinton is not qualified to be president of the united states of america. thank you so much for joining us. please welcome senator rand paul. [cheers and applause] >> thank you.

[applause] thank you. you, you can always tell if there's a sign it's an easy crowd. [laughter] if the prayer is interrupted by applause -- [laughter] you've got a great chance with the crowd, and then if we applaud again about the prayer -- but, no, it's great to part of a group that believes in prayer. i want to get one thing straight before i get going because i can go for a while. [laughter] i believe we have to border control. i believe there's absolutely no reason we can't have a fence because we have to keep the people from massachusetts out of new hampshire. [cheers and applause] you think i'm joking. [laughter] so about a month ago, i got in the car to go to work, and i

thought on the way in that i wanted to say something about drones. i've been asking the question for a whim, and i got up and spoke for 13 hours. [laughter] i went to cpac the next week, and i'm talking to a lot of young people. one kid yells out and summarizes my speech in three words. he says, "don't drone me, bro." [laughter] he had a appointment i wanted to make. that's a point that i think is incredibly important, and it's a point that sometimes we all don't agree on, but i think we should agree on. the question i was asking was to the president, do you think you have the authority to kill an american on american soil who's not involved in combat? you would think that would be an easy question. [laughter] his response was, well, i don't intend to. i have not done it yet, but i

might. it's sort of like him saying he doesn't intend to break the bill of rights or intends to honor the second amendment. the oath of office says, i will defend the constitution. i will preserve and defend the fusion. it doesn't mean i might if it's inconvenient, convenient, not inconvenient. we wecht through this, had written letters, bag and forth, got no answer, and finally, we got an answer, and people say, well, that's absurd. he'd never kill an american, and as i think i said in the 13 hours, ruin their cafe experience -- [laughter] sometimes you say things you didn't intend to after 13 hours. the thing is, we passed the year before legislation that gives the government the ability to indefinitely detain any one of you without a trial, without a lawyer, and actually send one of you to guantanamo bay. that's absurd also. the president says he doesn't

intend to use the power. it's not about intention to use power. the reason we keep power from the government while we've always jealously guarded power and why from the beginning we wanted to limit the power of the monarch, we were afraid about the gravitation of power. you know, madison said when someone has power, you need to have a certain degree of distrust. madison also said if government were compromised of angels, we wouldn't hate to have rules. henry said the reason we wrote the constitution was not to restrain you, but to restrain your government. the first amendment is not about restricting your religious freedom, but it's about restricting what government can do to your religion, how they get involved in your religion. these are important things whether they -- whether your officials use them or not, they are important. you can imagine a situation where an arab-american, in our country, is communicating by e-mail with a cousin who lives in lebanon, somebody says the

cows p's a terrorist, and now you're associated with terrorist. do you think you'd get a lawyer to defend yourself? when i brought this question up, another republican on the senate floor said, well, i said, could you send an american to guantanamo bay without a trial without accusation? he said, if they are dangerous. i said, well that begs to question, who decides if they are dangerous? another senator said, well, when they asked for a lawyer, you tell them to shut up. well, the thing is that when i see the young soldiers who come back, and my wife and i just helpedded build a house for a young soldier who lost both legs and one arm, when they comb home, i asked what they fight for, and they say the bill of rights. that is the freedom. when we talk about fighting for freedom, we have to define what we're fighting for. it has to be about the constitution. it has to be about the bill of rights. some may not agree with this, but think about it. we have the boston bomber recently. i was at a charity event about a

week later in a boston police mapp down there giving a speech. it was one of the best speeches i heard in a long time. he ran to the scene. he helped apply tourniquets. he helped people at the scene. he had the same thought every one of us had, anger, wanting to punish the people. he still has that. i have that. it's human. it's normal. he said, what separates us from them is that when we captured them, and the guns were gone and removed, we could have used lethal force, and we did, but once removed and capturedded, we sent the suspect to a hospital. he's going to be tried in a court of law. he's going to have an attorney. in their country, he'd be dragged through the streets, if it was an american, drug through the streets and beaten to death with a tire iron. we are different than they are, but it's the bill of rights, our laws, going through the process that makes us different than them. with regard to -- let's see --

anybody in here a fan of obamacare? [laughter] i figured that wasn't -- here's the thing is that the president just wants to take care of you. he just doesn't think you are able to do it for yourself. does anybody in here feel comforted that the new irs agent in charge of your medical records will be the same agent in charge of targeting the tea party? i think, really, there's going to be such a level of distrust, such a level of feeling that how will they ever cross that barrier again, i think that's going to have to be an independent commission. i don't see any way the president can gain back trust. [applause] for goodness sakes, somebody has to be fired. if not, go to prison. [applause]

the president doesn't think you're smart enough to take care of you so he has obama care. i want to tell you how. they used to have 18,000 medical codes. i mark a code, billed down, and obama's going to make you healthier, there's 140,000 codes. including among these codes are 3 # 12 new codes for injuries sustained by animals. among the codes is 72 new codes of injuries accident sustained m birds, including nine new codes of injuries sustained by the ma call. i've been in practice for 20 years and never seen that injury, but i am waiting. [laughter] there's two new codes to keep you safe and healthy, two codes for injuries sustained by turtles. [laughter] you ask you're, why two?

the government needs to know if you were bitten or struck by a turtle. [laughter] just trying to take care of you because you can't do it for yourself. kids get their news through youtube and video. they don't watch the news much anymore. my 16-year-old son sent me a clip of jimmy kimmel on the street, and it's hilarious. he goes out on the street, and he says to the first person who walks up. he says, you understand that the president pardoned the sequester. he sent it to portugal. [laughter] that was not the response. the response was, oh, well, i appreciate the president is such a good man, he wouldn't send it to portugal unless they deserved it. there's a few more, and they respond the same way. well, you heard north korea is launching missiles, but the president has sent the sequester to north korea, hen they were like, damn right, they deserve it. [laughter]

i think the president is losing the optics of this. the president is losing the public relations battle. he says, woah is me, i -- woe is me, i have to close down the self-guided white house tours. he does that, and in the same week, he announces he found an extra $250 million to send to egypt. in addition to the $2 billion we already send. they got money lying around, or they are willing to print it up to send overseas, but there's not enough money for the self-guided tours at white house. he says, oh, i got to fire the air traffic controllers. i got to fire the meat inspectors. we got a 3.8 trillion government, and he can't find any place to cut? if you've seen the chart of spending, it goes like this. if we have the sequester e it goes like this. we still increase spending over the next ten years, you can't see the white space in between the lines, and he says, oh, we don't have enough money.

there's a few suggestions for him. number one, if you just don't rehire the people who leave retirement from the federal government, that's $6 billion a year. he waited a year and a half before he started. that would have been $9 billion, $10 billion. he didn't do anything. save $10 billion a year by having competitive contracts, meaning that you don't have davis bacon, your schools cost 20-30% less, do the competitive wage, but you don't have to pay new york city union scale. $9-10 billion. there's a lot of smaller items that run throughout government. for example, last year, you may not realize, you spend $325,000 on a robotic squirrel. [laughter] you might ask yourself, why do you need a robotic squirrel? well, it's an important question. the scientists wanted to know whether a rattlesnake would strike a squirrel that was not wagging its tail, but they couldn't get a squirrel to

volunteer not to wag its tail. [laughter] they built one. guess what? the rattlesnake bites the you know what out of a squirrel that's not weighing its tail. [laughter] they spend $500,000 on a men knew for mars. this is good. if you have a 26-year-old son or daughter living in the basement and want them to have a job, this is great, a $5,000 stipend, job in hawaii, all expenses paid, prerequisites. the youngster had to like food. [laughter] they went there, for a couple weeks, studied this, a menu for mars, and guess what college students came up with? pizza. [laughter] i got on the foreign affairs committee this year, and so i got to ask hillary clinton a few questions. i did, i did happen to tell her --

i asked, did you read the cables asking for more security? she said, no, and i said, well, i just can't imagine if i had been president, i would have relieved you of office without question. that is a darliction of duty. [applause] he said the decisions did not rise up to her level. that's precisely her culpability. how many other countries are more dangerous than libya? they should have risen to her level. i'm a physician. you're in the emergency room, there are people triaging you, but if you have a stiff neck on a temperature of 105 degrees, it's my job to make sure the people out this know that you have to get back to see me. it is her job. when you talk about the most dangerous country in the world, and they repeatedly asked for

more security, and she doesn't get involved and act like, like the president, oh, i know nothing, i know nothing about it. it's inexcusable. here's the thing, they come back saying republicans didn't provide us with enough money. back in may, about four months before this happened, there was a request for a dc3, to stay in the country for people, denied the request. four days later, they improved a hundred thousand dollars for electrical charging stations because they were greening up the embassy in vienna. they can showoff for the socialist friends how we green up the planet with the charging station for ten cars that cost, on average, you pay for these also, you subsidize the lek electrical cars, $250,000 per car. that's what we do with the money, but we didn't have enough. why don't you have marines? i said, where in the hell were the marines?

her answer, oh, the marines are there to guard the paper. i said, that's insulting to any marine i met. they are capable of more than that. she said, that's what they always do. benghazi's not paris. this is what they missed. the board went through it with 64 good suggestions of things we should have done bet e but they missed one whole point, benghazi's not pairings. -- paris. it should be treated like baghdad, under military control, not state department control. that is the president and hillary clinton. [applause] when i think of the scandals, i sort of think of old mcdonald had a farm, the farm of scandals. here a scandal, there a scandal, everywhere a scandal. [laughter] hard to know which scandal to talk about, but i think they stem from one problem. that's that the government

accumulated too much power. the president accumulated too much power, not just this president, but the last ten allowing that power to go from congress to the presidency. we allowed the presidency to be too strong. lincoln had an admonishment saying nearly any man stands adversity, but if you want to challenge a man, give him power. i think the president's failing that test, failing that test of power. any person who would oversea, and he didn't know anything about it, but the word gets out that a lot more people knew about it than letting on, any person who uses the power or abuses the power of government to go after their political opponents, i don't care if you're a republican, a democrat, or an independent, take that brute force, that bullying force of government and use it to your opponents, there is something distinctly and profoundly un-american about that. [applause]

i've been talking with prebus on how to make the party bigger. we have to do something different. we ran good candidates. i think romney was a good candidate, frankly. [applause] i think he was one of the most generous, honorable people we had to run for office in a long time. i don't think you'll find an upstanding other person. [applause] as a party, we have to grow bigger. we, you know, if you want to be the party of white people, we'll win the white vote. romney got a higher than mccain who got a higher percentage than bush. we win when we look like america. we need to be white. we need to be brown. we need to be black. we need to be with tattoos, without tattoos, with ponytails, without ponytails, with beards, without.

we have to look like the rest of america, appeal to the working class. the message is big government is not just helping those who are the haves. big government is hurting the have-notes as well. big government really -- [applause] none of the things we suffer from big government, from the debt, from the printing of money is rising prices, and eroding standard of living. many people in this room, you can handle it, gasoline, $4, $4.50, you can handle it. you make $30,000-$50,000, when your gas is $4 a gallon, you don't go on vacation. you have trouble getting around and getting your kids to sporting events outside of town. it hurts you. that's big government. we need to be that party of opportunity. we need to be that party that can express it in a way that shows that we care about people. we need to care about people even if they are in government assistance. people on unemployment are not bad people. people who are on welfare are not bad people. we have to express wears the

party to give the opportunity to join us in the middle class. [applause] there's a writer that says when you paint, you need to paint like a map coming over a hill singing. i love the image of that. we need to be the party that proclaims our message like a man coming over the hill singing. we need to be the party that has passion, that believes in things. we don't have to dilute our message. the bill of rightings, the constitution, individual freedom, all of those things, liberty, those are things that young people can come to. they want someone who is genuine in how we present them. we don't have to dilute the message. when i think of it, i think of somehow we have to combine the passion of patrick henry, give me liberty or give me death with the passion of the proclaimers