i'm clarence mingo from the great state of ohio. it's a pleasure to be able to address the conference today. my time is brief, but i'd like to leave three points with you that will aid us through our flight as we journey to and beyond 2013. in 2008 and 2012, the republican party suffered epic losses. two presidential races lost back-to-back, very difficult to recover from. among the reasons for those defeats was the fact of the gop is not sufficiently diverse. you and i know that we are working tirelessly to ensure that diversity abounds within our party, and we know there is significant amounts of more work to be done. the question we must ask ourselves, as we seek diversity, will we always examine the character of the individual for high office. it is a time-honored tradition in the republican party that we first examine the character of our candidates before endeavoring to look after skin color. this is a principle we must not abandon. we must first always examine the character of our candidates to thereafter determine whether or