previous engagement. i believe he is home organizing his sock drawer. we have the honorable matt meade. to get us underway, we ask god's blessing and we honor our country and it's colors. may i please bring up paul eldrige and colorado state university graduate and currently with organization you need to know more about called revealingpolitics.com. please stand for the invocation and remain standing as caleb leads us in the pledge to our

colors. >> good morning, let's pray together. dear lord we gather under a literal and figurative cloud. the literal cloud is to the fires that burn to the south and to the north. we ask for your protection for the firefighters to put out these blazes, give them strength and safety. we ask for your comfort and peace for those families who have lost their homes and dreams. may they feel your presence in the midst of your loss. and the figurative cloud that hangs over the court decision that hangs over us today. we are shocked and surprised at the never end scope and reach of the federal government and we know, lord that your plan is for men to live free.

but where is the hope? i meet so many who tell me that they feel demoralized by the decay around us. where is the hope? the hope is not in who governs us or what laws are passed or what great things we do in as a nation. our hope is in the power of you lord working in the hearts of the people. and that is where our hope is in this life. you say in your scripture for i know the plans that i have for you. thank you for that promise lord. show each one of us the role that we are to play in bringing back liberty and freedom to the greatest country in the history of the world. this country and it's founding principles are a gift from you. let us not give away that gift.

in jesus' name we pray. amen. >> please join me in the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america. and to the republic for which it stands. one nation under god -- >> thank you very much friends. please be seated. the western conservative summit has been working with the romney campaign here in colorado. we are grateful for the hope of c help of colorado republican chairman and leaders here in colorado. james garcia and his right hand

jeff hunt. and to the colorado sun and alum now political director at romney headquarters in boston who are working first to see if they could get the governor's schedule to accommodate the summit and when it became evident that was not the case they made it possible for us to have last night's personal video message for the summit. and matt meade took office as the 32nd governor of wyoming and was previous president bush's appointee for united states attorney for the state of wyoming. governor meade is married to carole and they are the proud parents of daughter mary and son

pe pete. we are happy to welcome all four of them what kind of a job do our wyoming neighbors feel governor meade is doing, when last measured he had a 77% approval rating. now as mit romney's surrogate, please welcome, matt meade. [ applause ] >> thank you very much. t romney's surrogate, please welcome, matt meade. [ applause ] >> thank you very much. >> thank you. we are very thankful to be here. regarding that approval rating of 77%. i would just tell you that my closest friends asked me about that and they say, you know m

matt, wyoming is not a very large state, it is amazing that you have only met 23% of the people in this state. let me start out this morning and tell you that the citizens of wyoming and my family and i our thoughts and prayers are with the people in colorado who have been seriously threatened by the wildfires. in wyoming we too have been fighting fires, the dry season has made fires pop up. i think we have nine major fires in joem jowyoming. we appreciate our good neighbors in colorado. we know in times of need in colorado helps us. i have authorized the national guard and equipment to help with the colorado fires as we can and we will continue to do that. [ applause ]

>> our wish, our hope, our prayer for the citizens of colorado, the brave firefighters, the reelected officials in colorado that they continue to address this as they have with diligence and that soon the fires will be put out and that people and your land will soon be safe again. i want to before i get into some of my comments, as i look at the list of speakers that you have and will have, you have bands and you have the warm-up act for the bands. i'm sort of the warm up act for the warm up act. i have a few things that i would like to address. i need to tell you about wyoming and a little bit about me. first of all, i'm a 4th generation rancher from wyoming and very proud of that. i'm proud to call wyoming home

and proud to say that i am a westerner. i want to also tell you to the extent that some of you may not be familiar with this part of the country. when i have been in dc a time or two and i have been asked where i'm from, i'm growing weary of explaining wyoming because the question is now what town in colorado is wyoming? so, to be clear, we are not part of colorado and not a suburb of salt lake city and not a northern outpost of montana. we are the tenth largest state in the nation. we are also the least populated state. we are proud westerners. i want to be clear here, too, that being from the west, say

hollywood, california does not qualify you as westerner. here is what we are. [ applause ] we are a natural resource state. we are an energy state and we are the energy state. wyoming produces more british tho thermal units than any other state in the union. we are proudly number one in coal production and number two in natural gas production. we have number one in terms of uranium reserves. we are number one in trona and number one in the production of helium. we recognize the value of using these natural resources not just for our state but what they mean to our country. and as we used to think about talking about energy

independence for this country, it of ten was branded as political rhetoric. but with the right president, we can make that a reality. we have the resources to do it. now being from an energy state, often people ask, what about then environment. we are proud of our environment in wyoming. we are good stewarted of the land. we have done a good job balan balancing development and doing it in a good fashion. we believe and have believed that the best people to regulate that are not the people from d.c., but the states themselves. [ applause ] and of course like colorado, we are proudly an act state.

but in terms of history and experience, our people in the state of wyoming are conservative. as a matter of fact, we are the most red state in the union and dang proud of that as well. [ applause ] it is in our nature in our being to be supportive of state's rights. our elected officials in wyoming mirror our citizens. as we are here today to consider the future of our country. i want to point out what the responsible use of natural resources of state's rights has meant to our state. we are one of three states with no grocery seats tax. we are one of nine states with

no income tax. we have been voted as one of the most business friendly tax climate. we are one of the top five next boom states. we have the highest percentage of residents with high school diplomas per capita. we have the 5th lowest business cost. and finally, last year which was very good news as governor, we were rated as the best -- state in america. [ applause ] >> now of course, politicians are quick to grab credit. the fact is, it is for those who came before me and those who kept wyoming conservative. it is the private sector who has

put wyoming in that wonderful position. i bring those facts up about being business friendly. as we consider the future of this country. we too could have this across this country and wouldn't that be a wonderful thing to have less regulation and less taxes and business booming? [ applause ] it is critical that our next president knows the value of the west to our country. it is critical that our next president appreciates religious freedom and state's rights. only one ckansas datcakansacakc appreciates the west. and that candidate is mitt

romney. we often become irritated that we are viewed as a fly-over state. the only thing worse than being ignored is having washington pay attention to you because that is when bad things happen. but we want to know that our next president knows about the west and knows about wyoming. i will tell you during the primary season today. there has been exactly one candidate who has made multiple call to me to have discussions. and that candidate was mitt romney. when i say he called me, i don't mean a staffer gets on the line and says matt please hold for the next staffer who is going to leave you on hold. i'm talk iing about him callinge and leaving me meizati izatioii

messages. he knew about wyoming. he had taken time to learn about wyoming. this is a man who knows about the west. knows what we have here and knows what we value here. i waspressed by this. they are busy but yet we see in wyoming them see them meeting people and answering questions. they don't do this because we are a swing state. they do it because they care about the west. that is for a number of reasons including the fact we share a border. we also share a bond we have a

healthy competition for jobs and businesses. our universities compete for dollars. as you know the university of wyoming and they have a healthy rivalry. it is a very bad day in wyoming 77% go down every time we lose to csu. on those days, i take solace in the fact that i met my wife of 20 plus years at the university of wyoming and i stole her and i'm glad of it. [ applause ] while she is from littleton, colorado, she is pure wyoming. i'm proud of her and the job she

has done as first lady of wyoming. here in colorado, the gop has c control of the colorado state house and holds three of the state elected positions and four of the congressal seats. the mood has shifted here opening the door for republican victories this november. a get out the vote program by republicans in colorado will take place in the run up to the election. this will include elections to ensure absentee voting as well as voting on election day. colorado has more registered republican voters than democrat voters. when i see that number 115,000 i'm thinking that is 1/5 the population of our state. come on, colorado, come on. the victory operation is a joint effort of the rnc.

and the focus is to get republicans elected from the top down on the ticket. enthusiasm . but in fact, his change curbed our hope. he failed to fix the economy. he hadded millions of dollars to the national debt and aided many with his bad apologies. chief among them was the obamacare. i watched how quick the media was to say this is a great victory for president obama the wind is now at his back. i don't view it that way at all.

this thing was sort of hanging around. he owns it totally now. it is a dish a meal that has been held up and now he is going to serve that to the american people and the american people do not want it and it is not good policy for any state in america and in particular, my view, the western states. now they try to spin it a little bit, saying listen, it is constitution constitutional. we don't make decisions because it is legal it means it is good. and they have changed this penalty and said, no, it is not a penalty, it is going to be a taxation and somehow that is good news. that is a poor job of trying to perfume the pig, it is still not good. [ applause ] >> as i mentioned, i'm a 4th generation wyoming rancher.

i want to share with you what a blessing it was to grow up on the ranch. it taught me the value of hard work. and it caused me to appreciate that trait in others. it taught me that there are consequences to action. and appearance is not a substitute for results. it taught me that there is no true success without the possibility of failure. it taught me that a life full of given trophies is more important than those earned. it is not the american dream to be given those things, it is the american dream to earn those things. and now truly a ranching wyoming story. but translates beyond wyoming.

my great grandparents homesteaded in wyoming. they lived in a covered wagon. he said in wyoming, where you find one blade of grass you leave two. and the reason that transcends is what is the message every generation has an obligation and a duty to leave better things for the next generation to improve upon it and give back. the fact is president obama has not been leaving that second blade of grass he has instead taken blades of grass for future generations. during presidential election cycles, the question is often

asked are you better off than you were four years ago, and recently i was speaking to a republican group and i asked that question are you better off than you were three and a half years ago. i didn't wait for the answer i said no, no one is better off. when you get off the stage and you see someone making a bee line for you. and this lady was doing that. and i knew, this was going to be fun here. here she came and she came up to me and said governor mead, you were dead wrong on that. she said i want to tell you. she said this with a smile, my husband has had a banner business and this business is foreclosures. so i was corrected. but the fact of the matter is,

and we are proud of this. conservative republicans who care, we don't ask the question am i better off than i was three years ago or four years ago. we ask the question more broadly. we ask are our neighbors better off? are our schools better off? is the security better off? is our immigration policy better off? are our churches better off? because in fact, this election is not about defeating a man, it is about winning. [ applause ] it is not just about the dreams of our fathers. it is about our dreams for our kids and grand kids. you all here love this country as i love this country. and i never lose hope.

we are truly the greatest country. no other country has provided the freedoms and liberty that we have provided in this country. but our strength and success is not a grar ruarantee of future success. this is the time to show the republican party of coming together. this is the time that we can again replant the blade of grass for future generations. i ask you to join me in making that a reyagiality by getting elected for president the one person who can grow blades of grass turning our dreams into reality. the person to do that job is governor mitt romney. thank you and god bless. [ applause ]

matt mead. governor, thank you, so very, very plufrp. what a great start to summit saturday, 2012. governor mead and his wife and children. we wish them the very best. they are the best things to come out of yowyoming since dick cheney. and we hope to see more of you governor mead. let me introduce now someone who is an old friend of western conservative summit. when we first met in 2010, he was with us as a young colorado state representative, determined to return the representation of colorado's great eastern plains district to republican hands.

when we met a year ago he was on the program to join us in person and was detained in washington. he was already a leader in the freshman class who were fighting to keep the debt ceiling. how pleased we are that he can be with us again in person. please welcome our republican congressman from the 4th congressal district, the honorable, corey gardner. [ applause ] >> good morning. well thank you very much. there is almost as many people in this room as in my home town. i grew up in yuma, colorado. probably most of you don't know where it is. it is between otis and eckley.

that nor narrows it down a little bit. and governor mead what a fantastic leader. let's give him another round of applause please. the governor mentioned that it is a bad day in wyoming when the football team loses to colorado state university. i will point out that there haven't been that many bad days in the past couple of years. thank you some john andrews, thank you to senator arm strong and ccu the western conservative summit is truly an incredible opopportunity to express our values and the reasons that we believe liberty and the fumun fundamental notions of our constitution. i represent the values of this

country. a nation that believes this country functions best when the government gets out of the way and lets america work. and john andrews, i am a little bit concerned about this gathering here. if janet nepolitano hears about it. it may be put on a government-watch list. they tell me there is an epa drone outside. what a people it has been in washington, d.c. from finding eric holder in contempt of congress, to a supreme court that has given congress the green light to taxing people for not spending

money. congress can tax you when you earn an income and tax you when you buy something and now the government may tax you if you don't buy something. and while the supreme court of the united states has decided this law is not uncontitutional it is still bad policy. [ applause ] the court had it say on june 28th. the people in this room and around this country will have it say -- their say on november 6th, 2012. [ applause ] and that is why this summit couldn't have come at a more important time in our nation's history. a time to reflect on the past and reiner