Chilling details of John Lennon shooting recounted at Chapman parole hearing

New York State Dept. of Corrections

Mark David Chapman is seen in this May 15, 2012, photo from the New York State Department of Corrections.

By Jim Gold, NBC News

The killer of ex-Beatle John Lennon says he used hollow point bullets to shoot the singer “because they were more deadly.”

Mark David Chapman retold chilling details of his Dec. 8, 1980, crime during a New York parole board hearing on Aug. 22. He was denied parole for a seventh time the next day and remains at Wende Correctional Facility in western New York. The parole department released transcripts of the hearing Wednesday.

But Lennon was more famous, Chapman said. He insisted he had no anger toward Lennon: “If he was less famous than three or four other people on the list, he would not have been shot.”He said he also considered targeting television host Johnny Carson and actor George C. Scott.Chapman said he was living in Hawaii when he decided to target Lennon “because he was very famous.”

Associated Press
John Lennon is shown performing Aug. 30, 1972, at New York's Madison Square Garden.

Chapman said he bought the gun he used in Honolulu and needed only to show a driver’s license to get it. However, he said he got the hollow-point bullets from an old friend in Atlanta who was a police officer.  “I made a phone call in New York and the fellow said, ‘you’re not going to get any bullets out of me. It’s just not done here.’” He said he told his Atlanta friend he needed the bullets for protection. “I didn’t tell him what I was going to do,” Chapman said.
When asked why he chose hollow-point, Chapman responded “Because they were more deadly.”  Asked if he wanted to “inflict death,” on Lennon, Chapman responded, “Yes. Absolutely.”

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Watch TODAY's morning news coverage from the day the legendary musician was assassinated outside his New York City apartment building.

Chapman said he had flown from Hawaii to New York twice to check out Lennon’s apartment building, called the Dakota. He said on one trip, he saw the film “Ordinary People,” and called his wife, who was in Hawaii, and told her of his deadly plan but that he decided not to go through with it. The compulsion to kill grew again after he returned to Hawaii, so he flew back to New York without telling his wife he planned to kill Lennon, said Chapman, who was 25 at the time. Chapman said that on the day he shot Lennon, he staked out the Dakota from before noon and talked to him early in the day.

“He was very kind to me” and signed an album while his wife, Yoko Ono, waited in a limousine, Chapman said.
“Very cordial and very decent man,” Chapman said. “… But I was so compelled to commit murder that nothing would have dragged me away from that building.” Just before 11 p.m., Lennon and Ono arrived at the apartment building. Ono got out of the car first, Chapman said, and went into the alcove of the Dakota as Lennon lingered at the car a moment. “And then when Mr. Lennon passed me I turned, pulled out my weapon and shot him in the back,” Chapman said.

The record, he said, shows him calling out “Mr. Lennon,” but he told the parole board he didn’t say that.
“I just shot him,” he said.  Chapman fired five shots with a .38-caliber revolver, hitting Lennon four times in front of Ono and others. There was a scream, and the Dakota doorman, Jose, grabbed Chapman’s pistol, the gunman told the parole board.  Chapman said he was carrying a copy of J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” when he shot Lennon. He claimed to identify with the main character, “who seemed to be lost and troubled.”

While in prison, Chapman said, he has been in his cell writing letters, reading and thinking.  He also said he has been having conjugal visits with his wife “pretty steady” for 20 years. His wife lives in Hawaii, he said.  He also said he has a “deep relationship with Christ” that started when he was in a Christian camp at age 16. “So this is obviously very embarrassing for me now, having committed murder,” Chapman said.

If he were to be paroled, Chapman said, he would go to Medina, N.Y., about 50 miles northeast of Buffalo, where a minister whom his wife met offered to refurbish an apartment and give him two jobs on his farm. Chapman said he had corresponded with the pastor but met him just two days before the parole hearing.

The reason for the crime, according to Chapman: “Attention, bottom line.”

He also told a parole commissioner, “Fame is ridiculous. It holds no value.”He said he received the attention but now he feels it was an “absolutely ridiculously selfish act to take another human life so that I could be pumped up into, you know, something that I wasn’t to begin with.” “It was a very selfish act and I deeply regret it,” Chapman told the board. “I’m sorry for my crime.”

MARK CHAPMAN - 2012 Shooter of John Lennon

Mitt Romney Accepts Republican Presidential Nomination

Joe Skipper / Reuters

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney takes the stage to formally accept the presidential nomination during the final session of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, August 30, 2012.

By Catherine Dodge and Lisa Lerer - Aug 31, 2012 12:31 AM ET

Mitt Romney accepted the Republican Party’s presidential nomination tonight, capping a six-year quest and setting up a general election showdown with President Barack Obama.

• Romney’s Misleads on Obama Health Cost: Reality Check

Mitt Romney, Republican presidential candidate, pauses before speaking at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

38:36

Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks about his background and economic strategy, and President Barack Obama's lack of business experience and policy failures. He addresses the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. (Source: Bloomberg)

17:44

Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, speaks about President Barack Obama's policy failures and the importance of electing Mitt Romney to spur economic growth. Rubio addresses the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. (Source: Bloomberg)

Mitt Romney, Republican presidential candidate, right, and Paul Ryan, vice presidential candidate, wave at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Mitt Romney, Republican presidential candidate, left, and wife Ann Romney wave to delegates at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Tampa, Florida, U.S., on Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2012. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg

In a speech at the Tampa Bay Times Forum in Florida, Romney addressed a crowd of delegates and party officials and sought to zero in on his economic message and broaden his appeal to independent voters who have been unsure whether he could relate to their needs. He said the excitement among Americans when Obama won the presidency almost four years ago has given way to “disappointment and division.”

“Tonight I’d ask a simple question: If you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn’t you feel that way now that he’s President Obama?” he said. “You know there’s something wrong with the kind of job he’s done as president when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him.”

The “hope and change” Obama promised and Americans voted for was supposed to usher in a time when the nation would pay down debt, families could get ahead and companies would add workers, Romney said.

“I wish president Obama had succeeded because I want America to succeed,” Romney said. “Today the time has come for us to put the disappointments of the last four years behind us.”

Jobs Focus

What the nation needs “is not complicated or profound,” he said. “It doesn’t take a special government commission to tell us what America needs. What America needs is jobs. Lots of jobs.”

Playing off a line from a speech Obama gave during his 2008 campaign, Romney said: “President Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet. My promise is to help you and your family.”

Romney, 65, was under pressure in his speech to show undecided voters more personality and emotion and connect with the public, even as fiscal conservatives in his own party say he must better define his plans for reining in the federal budget deficit and improving the economy.

Romney spoke of his parents and the family he and his wife have sought to raise.

‘Loving Hearts’

“Unconditional love is a gift that Ann and I have tried to pass on to our sons and now to our grandchildren,” he said. “All the laws and legislation in the world will never heal this world like the loving hearts and arms of mothers and fathers.”

In an effort to close the gender gap -- Obama’s lead over him among female votes in polls -- Romney talked of the women he has worked with and relied on over the course of his career.

“As governor of Massachusetts, I chose a woman lieutenant governor, a woman chief of staff, half of my cabinet and senior officials were women, and in business, I mentored and supported great women leaders who went on to run great companies,” he said.

Romney, who failed in his bid for the party’s 2008 nomination, was more open about his Mormon faith.

He said that early in his marriage, he and his wife “found kinship with a wide circle of friends through our church. When we were new to the community it was welcoming and as the years went by, it was a joy to help others who had just moved to town or just joined our church.”

Before Romney took the stage, members of his church told the convention how Romney helped support them during trying times. As a Mormon bishop, Romney counseled many congregants on their toughest decisions, from weighing whether to have an abortion to counseling parents with dying children.

Bain Capital

Part of tonight’s agenda spotlighted Romney’s career in the private sector, including his time as head of Boston-based private-equity firm Bain Capital LLC, with a film about Indiana- based Steel Dynamics, a Bain investment. Romney broached Bain in his speech as well.

“That business we started with 10 people has now grown into a great American success story,” he said. “Some of the companies we helped start are names you know. An office supply company called Staples -- where I’m pleased to see the Obama campaign has been shopping; The Sports Authority, which became a favorite of my sons.”

Obama and allied political action committees have attacked Romney over his work at Bain, linking him to job cuts and outsourcing by companies that the firm invested in.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio: 'I Should Be Getting A Medal' For Fighting Illegal Immigration And Drug Cartels

The Huffington Post  |  By Sara Gates Posted: 08/29/2012 6:16 pm Updated: 08/29/2012 6:20 pm

A defiant Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio pounds his fist on the podium as he answers questions during a press conference.

As President Obama took to RedditWednesday, Sheriff Joe Arpaio took some questions of his own from foreign journalists.

Addressing his recent racial profiling investigation and stance on immigration, Arpaio told Spanish news service EFE that he deserves a medal for his efforts against illegal immigration.

“I should be getting a medal,” he said. “The president should invite me to the White House and thank me for all my help fighting illegal immigration and drug cartels.”

Arpaio is currently in Tampa for the Republican National Convention. Though he is not officially slated on the RNC schedule, he will be speaking to a crowd of delegates during an invite-only reception Thursday.

“The president and I should go to the patio, have some beers, play a little basketball and talk,” Arpaio added, “but that’s not going to happen.”

No, Sheriff, you probably won't get to try the President's honey ale brew.

(h/t Univision)

Women And Poverty In The United States: 18 Essential Facts And Statistics

The Huffington Post  |  By Emma Gray Posted: 08/29/2012 9:03 am Updated: 08/29/2012 12:23 pm

Fact: In 2010 46 million Americans were living in poverty. Fact: Record numbers of Americans living in "extreme poverty" are women.

During the Republican National Convention this week and the Democratic National Convention next week, The Huffington Post is hosting three online Shadow Conventions highlighting issues that seem to fall off both parties' radars too easily. Sections across HuffPost are tackling the Drug War, poverty and the seemingly ever-expanding role that money plays in political campaigns. Today we're focusing on poverty in the United States -- an issue that disproportionately impacts households led by women.

Women are more likely to fall below the poverty line than men are for a variety of reasons, some of which you hear discussed more than others. We could say more, but today, we'll let the facts speak for themselves. Here is the reality of women and poverty in America:

LOOK: 18 Facts About Women And Poverty In The United States

Click here to check it out -- and join the conversation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

  

 

 

  

 

Shameless: 5 Ugly Themes We Saw at the RNC Convention

When they talk about “taking America back,” they don’t just mean taking it back to pre-Obama days, or even to the era of Ronald Reagan.

August 31, 2012    AlterNet / By Peter Montgomery

                                                      14 COMMENTS 

The Republican National Convention closed Thursday night. After millions of dollars and countless hours of preparation, planning every aspect of the messaging and visual clues, the most indelible moment of the convention was the wince-inducing image of Clint Eastwood mocking an emptychair representing Barack Obama. Congratulations, Mr. Romney.

Of course Eastwood was far from the only embarrassment on- or off-stage. If Republican Party leaders had any capacity for shame, they would be losing sleep over the truth-be-damned, ends-justify-the-means approach to their entire campaign. But why waste time with counter-factuals? Here are five notable themes from the Republican Party’s week in Tampa.

1. We Built it (on Lies)

For almost as long as I can remember, there was a tremendous reluctance among journalists and even many politicians to call out a politician for lying. People used euphemisms like “misleading” or “untruthful.” Not any more. The GOP’s campaign this year is so thoroughly grounded in falsehoods (there’s another one) that even political journalists who are used to the loose standards of campaign rhetoric are struggling with how to express the scope of the Romney campaign’s lying. RNC speakers kept fact-checkers working overtime to keep up with their lies. Knowing what was coming, the Romney campaign pre-emptively announced that it would “not let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.”

One of the most memorable examples of journalistic indignation at the shamelessness of the Romney campaign came from political reporter Michael Tomasky:

Analysis of the fact that Ryan can lie the way he does requires the skills of a psychologist. All I can say is that we’re in new territory—a Republican trying to own a Democratic issue, and doing so on the basis of a couple of lies so blatant that he’s practically saying to the Democrats and the media: “Fuck you, come and get me. You can’t touch me.”

Of course, right-wing pundits have spent years pounding an ignore-all-but-right-wing-media message into the heads of their reader and viewers. The first sign of the convention I saw when arriving in Tampa was a billboard near the airport that screamed, “Don’t Believe the Liberal Media.”

2. Tea Party Triumphant

The anti-government Tea Party movement, lavishly funded by the Koch brothers and corporate America through groups like FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, has been working relentlessly to move the GOP further to the right, successfully waging campaigns to purge the party of elected officials deemed too willing to work with Democrats or insufficiently enlisted in the campaign to roll back any regulations on business. FreedomWorks was successful at getting almost all of its wish-list codified into the party platform. Ted Cruz of Texas will almost certainly be joining Jim DeMint's Tea Party caucus in the Senate. And Koch’s hand-picked candidate, Ayn Rand acolyte Paul Ryan, is the party’s vice presidential nominee. Maybe even more important than all that, reverse class-warfare rhetoric absolutely dominated the convention: over and over, concern for economic inequality was equated with petty jealousy; progressive taxation was slammed as punishing success; people who might need government assistance were denigrated as lazy parasites. No wonder David Koch and his allies were in the mood to party on the final night of the convention.

3. GOP = God’s Own Party

Sen. Marco Rubio, the shining star of the Tea Party’s 2010 efforts, used his prime speaking slot right before Mitt Romney to declare that “faith in our Creator is the most important American value of all.” Really? Not individual liberty or equality under the law or the protections of the Constitution that apply to people of all faiths as well as none?

Religious Right activists dominated the platform-writing process and made sure that its anti-choice and anti-gay rhetoric would be strong enough to help energize conservative evangelicals who haven’t yet been convinced that they should approach right-wing economics with the same religious fervor – a strategy blessed by the Romney campaign. At the leadership level, the Tea Party and Religious Right rhetoric has already been seamlessly blended, with “American exceptionalism” meaning to some voters a country and Constitution grounded in the Bible, and to others the freedom to get rich without government interference – or both. GOP leaders fully embraced another of the Religious Right’s campaign themes – that Barack Obama is waging a war on religion and religious freedom.

One major goal for the Romney campaign and its Religious Right backers was to erase any remaining qualms that some voters might have about voting for a Mormon - to many evangelicals, a non-Christian – for president. At events organized by the Religious Right speakers who in the past insisted on the importance of electing good Christians now said it wasn’t important where a candidate went to church but whether he shares the religious right’s “values.” Before Eastwood’s strange piece of performance art, the most memorable part of the convention’s closing night came from speakers who talked about the compassionate pastoral care Romney provided as a Mormon leader.

4. Rigging the Rules

Ron Paul supporters were not the only ones outraged by the machinations of the Romney campaign to deny recognition to some Paul delegates and to push through rules changes that would give future nominees basically total control over convention delegates. Even Religious Right leaders complained. But how could any of this be surprising to anyone, given the ruthless voter suppression campaign being waged by Republican Party officials all across the country? The principle of fair elections is far less important to them than the reality of political power.

5. Paging Mr. Orwell

The strongest impression left by the convention is – I have to use this word again – the shamelessness with which Romney, Ryan, and others accused their opponents of the very things that are at the center of their campaign. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie says Americans should count on Republicans to be truth-tellers, while the Romney campaign floods the airways with well-documented lies. Speaker after speaker accuses President Obama of waging a campaign of resentment and divisiveness, when Romney pours money into dishonest ads designed to make working Americans resent anyone who receives government assistance – or, as Romney referred to members of the NAACP after being booed at the group’s convention, people who want “more free stuff.”

You almost – almost – have to respect the sheer audacity that it took for Mitt Romney to deliver this line with a straight face: “president [Obama] was not the choice of our party but Americans always come together after elections.” From the moment Obama was elected, right-wing leaders were declaring themselves part of a resistance movement dedicated to the failure of his administration, and they set about savaging him as an un-American, anti-American stealth Jihadist bent on destroying America. Sen. Mitch McConnell, who leads the Senate’s Republicans memorably asserted that his biggest priority was denying President Obama a second term.

Back to the Past

Of course there was more going on. Republicans made an effort to chip into Obama’s commanding lead among Latino voters by giving plenty of podium time to Hispanic leaders who sprinkled their speeches with Spanish. Ann Romney and others were enlisted to make the nominee more appealing to women.

But the party platform and the ascendancy of the anti-government Tea Party faction within the GOP make it clear that when they talk about “taking America back,” they don’t just mean taking it back to pre-Obama days, or even to the era of Ronald Reagan. They are looking further back, before LGBT equality was “threatening” the family, before women had access to contraception or the option to have a safe and legal abortion, before the federal government was promoting socialism in the form of Medicare, before the Supreme Court allowed the federal government to usurp state sovereignty with pesky things like child labor laws.

Marco Rubio, mocking President Obama’s choice of “Forward” as a campaign theme, described the past as a time when wealth and power belonged only to a few. But doesn’t that increasingly describe America in the post-Citizens Unitedera, when wealth and political power are concentrated hand-in-hand? For Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and the folks toasting them from the Americans for Prosperity suite, that’s just fine
.

Mitt Romney's Acceptance Speech At The GOP Convention

Transcript of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's acceptance speech as prepared for delivery at the Republican National Convention:

Mr. Chairman, delegates. I accept your nomination for President of the United States of America.

I do so with humility, deeply moved by the trust you have placed in me. It is a great honor. It is an even greater responsibility.

Tonight I am asking you to join me to walk together to a better future. By my side, I have chosen a man with a big heart from a small town. He represents the best of America, a man who will always make us proud – my friend and America's next Vice President, Paul Ryan.

In the days ahead, you will get to know Paul and Janna better. But last night America got to see what I saw in Paul Ryan – a strong and caring leader who is down to earth and confident in the challenge this moment demands.

I love the way he lights up around his kids and how he's not embarrassed to show the world how much he loves his mom.

But Paul, I still like the playlist on my iPod better than yours.

Four years ago, I know that many Americans felt a fresh excitement about the possibilities of a new president. That president was not the choice of our party but Americans always come together after elections. We are a good and generous people who are united by so much more than what divides us.

When that hard fought election was over, when the yard signs came down and the television commercials finally came off the air, Americans were eager to go back to work, to live our lives the way Americans always have – optimistic and positive and confident in the future.

That very optimism is uniquely American.

It is what brought us to America. We are a nation of immigrants. We are the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the ones who wanted a better life, the driven ones, the ones who woke up at night hearing that voice telling them that life in that place called America could be better.

They came not just in pursuit of the riches of this world but for the richness of this life.

Freedom.

Freedom of religion.

Freedom to speak their mind.

Freedom to build a life.

And yes, freedom to build a business. With their own hands.

This is the essence of the American experience.

We Americans have always felt a special kinship with the future.

When every new wave of immigrants looked up and saw the Statue of Liberty, or knelt down and kissed the shores of freedom just ninety miles from Castro's tyranny, these new Americans surely had many questions. But none doubted that here in America they could build a better life, that in America their children would be more blessed than they.

But today, four years from the excitement of the last election, for the first time, the majority of Americans now doubt that our children will have a better future.

It is not what we were promised.

Every family in America wanted this to be a time when they could get ahead a little more, put aside a little more for college, do more for their elderly mom who's living alone now or give a little more to their church or charity.

Every small business wanted these to be their best years ever, when they could hire more, do more for those who had stuck with them through the hard times, open a new store or sponsor that Little League team.

Every new college graduate thought they'd have a good job by now, a place of their own, and that they could start paying back some of their loans and build for the future.

This is when our nation was supposed to start paying down the national debt and rolling back those massive deficits.

This was the hope and change America voted for.

It's not just what we wanted. It's not just what we expected.

It's what Americans deserved.

You deserved it because during these years, you worked harder than ever before. You deserved it because when it cost more to fill up your car, you cut out movie nights and put in longer hours. Or when you lost that job that paid $22.50 an hour with benefits, you took two jobs at 9 bucks an hour and fewer benefits. You did it because your family depended on you. You did it because you're an American and you don't quit. You did it because it was what you had to do.

But driving home late from that second job, or standing there watching the gas pump hit 50 dollars and still going, when the realtor told you that to sell your house you'd have to take a big loss, in those moments you knew that this just wasn't right.

But what could you do? Except work harder, do with less, try to stay optimistic. Hug your kids a little longer; maybe spend a little more time praying that tomorrow would be a better day.

I wish President Obama had succeeded because I want America to succeed. But his promises gave way to disappointment and division. This isn't something we have to accept. Now is the moment when we CAN do something. With your help we will do something.

Now is the moment when we can stand up and say, "I'm an American. I make my destiny. And we deserve better! My children deserve better! My family deserves better. My country deserves better!"

So here we stand. Americans have a choice. A decision.

To make that choice, you need to know more about me and about where I will lead our country.

I was born in the middle of the century in the middle of the country, a classic baby boomer. It was a time when Americans were returning from war and eager to work. To be an American was to assume that all things were possible. When President Kennedy challenged Americans to go to the moon, the question wasn't whether we'd get there, it was only when we'd get there.

The soles of Neil Armstrong's boots on the moon made permanent impressions on OUR souls and in our national psyche. Ann and I watched those steps together on her parent's sofa. Like all Americans we went to bed that night knowing we lived in the greatest country in the history of the world.

God bless Neil Armstrong.

Tonight that American flag is still there on the moon. And I don't doubt for a second that Neil Armstrong's spirit is still with us: that unique blend of optimism, humility and the utter confidence that when the world needs someone to do the really big stuff, you need an American.

That's how I was brought up.

My dad had been born in Mexico and his family had to leave during the Mexican revolution. I grew up with stories of his family being fed by the US Government as war refugees. My dad never made it through college and apprenticed as a lath and plaster carpenter. And he had big dreams. He convinced my mom, a beautiful young actress, to give up Hollywood to marry him. He moved to Detroit, led a great automobile company and became Governor of the Great State of Michigan.

We were Mormons and growing up in Michigan; that might have seemed unusual or out of place but I really don't remember it that way. My friends cared more about what sports teams we followed than what church we went to.

My mom and dad gave their kids the greatest gift of all – the gift of unconditional love. They cared deeply about who we would BE, and much less about what we would DO.

Unconditional love is a gift that Ann and I have tried to pass on to our sons and now to our grandchildren. All the laws and legislation in the world will never heal this world like the loving hearts and arms of mothers and fathers. If every child could drift to sleep feeling wrapped in the love of their family – and God's love — this world would be a far more gentle and better place.

Mom and Dad were married 64 years. And if you wondered what their secret was, you could have asked the local florist – because every day Dad gave Mom a rose, which he put on her bedside table. That's how she found out what happened on the day my father died – she went looking for him because that morning, there was no rose.

My mom and dad were true partners, a life lesson that shaped me by everyday example. When my mom ran for the Senate, my dad was there for her every step of the way. I can still hear her saying in her beautiful voice, "Why should women have any less say than men, about the great decisions facing our nation?"

I wish she could have been here at the convention and heard leaders like Governor Mary Fallin, Governor Nikki Haley, Governor Susana Martinez, Senator Kelly Ayotte and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

As Governor of Massachusetts, I chose a woman Lt. Governor, a woman chief of staff, half of my cabinet and senior officials were women, and in business, I mentored and supported great women leaders who went on to run great companies.

I grew up in Detroit in love with cars and wanted to be a car guy, like my dad. But by the time I was out of school, I realized that I had to go out on my own, that if I stayed around Michigan in the same business, I'd never really know if I was getting a break because of my dad. I wanted to go someplace new and prove myself.

Those weren't the easiest of days – too many long hours and weekends working, five young sons who seemed to have this need to re-enact a different world war every night. But if you ask Ann and I what we'd give, to break up just one more fight between the boys, or wake up in the morning and discover a pile of kids asleep in our room. Well, every mom and dad knows the answer to that.

Those days were toughest on Ann, of course. She was heroic. Five boys, with our families a long way away. I had to travel a lot for my job then and I'd call and try to offer support. But every mom knows that doesn't help get the homework done or the kids out the door to school.

I knew that her job as a mom was harder than mine. And I knew without question, that her job as a mom was a lot more important than mine. And as America saw Tuesday night, Ann would have succeeded at anything she wanted to.

Like a lot of families in a new place with no family, we found kinship with a wide circle of friends through our church. When we were new to the community it was welcoming and as the years went by, it was a joy to help others who had just moved to town or just joined our church. We had remarkably vibrant and diverse congregants from all walks of life and many who were new to America. We prayed together, our kids played together and we always stood ready to help each other out in different ways.

And that's how it is in America. We look to our communities, our faiths, our families for our joy, our support, in good times and bad. It is both how we live our lives and why we live our lives. The strength and power and goodness of America has always been based on the strength and power and goodness of our communities, our families, our faiths.

That is the bedrock of what makes America, America. In our best days, we can feel the vibrancy of America's communities, large and small.

It's when we see that new business opening up downtown. It's when we go to work in the morning and see everybody else on our block doing the same.

It's when our son or daughter calls from college to talk about which job offer they should take....and you try not to choke up when you hear that the one they like is not far from home.

It's that good feeling when you have more time to volunteer to coach your kid's soccer team, or help out on school trips.

But for too many Americans, these good days are harder to come by. How many days have you woken up feeling that something really special was happening in America?

Many of you felt that way on Election Day four years ago. Hope and Change had a powerful appeal. But tonight I'd ask a simple question: If you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn't you feel that way now that he's President Obama? You know there's something wrong with the kind of job he's done as president when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him.

The President hasn't disappointed you because he wanted to. The President has disappointed America because he hasn't led America in the right direction. He took office without the basic qualification that most Americans have and one that was essential to his task. He had almost no experience working in a business. Jobs to him are about government.

I learned the real lessons about how America works from experience.

When I was 37, I helped start a small company. My partners and I had been working for a company that was in the business of helping other businesses.

So some of us had this idea that if we really believed our advice was helping companies, we should invest in companies. We should bet on ourselves and on our advice.

So we started a new business called Bain Capital. The only problem was, while WE believed in ourselves, nobody else did. We were young and had never done this before and we almost didn't get off the ground. In those days, sometimes I wondered if I had made a really big mistake. I had thought about asking my church's pension fund to invest, but I didn't. I figured it was bad enough that I might lose my investors' money, but I didn't want to go to hell too. Shows what I know. Another of my partners got the Episcopal Church pension fund to invest. Today there are a lot of happy retired priests who should thank him.

That business we started with 10 people has now grown into a great American success story. Some of the companies we helped start are names you know. An office supply company called Staples – where I'm pleased to see the Obama campaign has been shopping; The Sports Authority, which became a favorite of my sons. We started an early childhood learning center called Bright Horizons that First Lady Michelle Obama rightly praised. At a time when nobody thought we'd ever see a new steel mill built in America, we took a chance and built one in a corn field in Indiana. Today Steel Dynamics is one of the largest steel producers in the United States.

These are American success stories. And yet the centerpiece of the President's entire re-election campaign is attacking success. Is it any wonder that someone who attacks success has led the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression? In America, we celebrate success, we don't apologize for it.

We weren't always successful at Bain. But no one ever is in the real world of business.

That's what this President doesn't seem to understand. Business and growing jobs is about taking risk, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding, but always striving. It is about dreams. Usually, it doesn't work out exactly as you might have imagined. Steve Jobs was fired at Apple. He came back and changed the world.

It's the genius of the American free enterprise system – to harness the extraordinary creativity and talent and industry of the American people with a system that is dedicated to creating tomorrow's prosperity rather than trying to redistribute today's.

That is why every president since the Great Depression who came before the American people asking for a second term could look back at the last four years and say with satisfaction: "you are better off today than you were four years ago."

Except Jimmy Carter. And except this president.

This president can ask us to be patient.

This president can tell us it was someone else's fault.

This president can tell us that the next four years he'll get it right.

But this president cannot tell us that YOU are better off today than when he took office.

Americahas been patient. Americans have supported this president in good faith.

But today, the time has come to turn the page.

Today the time has come for us to put the disappointments of the last four years behind us.

To put aside the divisiveness and the recriminations.

To forget about what might have been and to look ahead to what can be.

Now is the time to restore the Promise of America. Many Americans have given up on this president but they haven't ever thought about giving up. Not on themselves. Not on each other. And not on America.

What is needed in our country today is not complicated or profound. It doesn't take a special government commission to tell us what America needs.

What America needs is jobs.

Lots of jobs.

In the richest country in the history of the world, this Obama economy has crushed the middle class. Family income has fallen by $4,000, but health insurance premiums are higher, food prices are higher, utility bills are higher, and gasoline prices have doubled. Today more Americans wake up in poverty than ever before. Nearly one out of six Americans is living in poverty. Look around you. These are not strangers. These are our brothers and sisters, our fellow Americans.

His policies have not helped create jobs, they have depressed them. And this I can tell you about where President Obama would take America:

His plan to raise taxes on small business won't add jobs, it will eliminate them;

His assault on coal and gas and oil will send energy and manufacturing jobs to China;

His trillion dollar cuts to our military will eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs, and also put our security at greater risk;

His $716 billion cut to Medicare to finance Obamacare will both hurt today's seniors, and depress innovation – and jobs – in medicine.

And his trillion-dollar deficits will slow our economy, restrain employment, and cause wages to stall.

To the majority of Americans who now believe that the future will not be better than the past, I can guarantee you this: if Barack Obama is re-elected, you will be right.

I am running for president to help create a better future. A future where everyone who wants a job can find one. Where no senior fears for the security of their retirement. An America where every parent knows that their child will get an education that leads them to a good job and a bright horizon.

And unlike the President, I have a plan to create 12 million new jobs. It has 5 steps.

First, by 2020, North America will be energy independent by taking full advantage of our oil and coal and gas and nuclear and renewables.

Second, we will give our fellow citizens the skills they need for the jobs of today and the careers of tomorrow. When it comes to the school your child will attend, every parent should have a choice, and every child should have a chance.

Third, we will make trade work for America by forging new trade agreements. And when nations cheat in trade, there will be unmistakable consequences.

Fourth, to assure every entrepreneur and every job creator that their investments in America will not vanish as have those in Greece, we will cut the deficit and put America on track to a balanced budget.

And fifth, we will champion SMALL businesses, America's engine of job growth. That means reducing taxes on business, not raising them. It means simplifying and modernizing the regulations that hurt small business the most. And it means that we must rein in the skyrocketing cost of healthcare by repealing and replacing Obamacare.

Today, women are more likely than men to start a business. They need a president who respects and understands what they do.

And let me make this very clear – unlike President Obama, I will not raise taxes on the middle class.

As president, I will protect the sanctity of life. I will honor the institution of marriage. And I will guarantee America's first liberty: the freedom of religion.

President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. MY promise...is to help you and your family.

I will begin my presidency with a jobs tour. President Obama began with an apology tour. America, he said, had dictated to other nations. No Mr. President, America has freed other nations from dictators.

Every American was relieved the day President Obama gave the order, and Seal Team Six took out Osama bin Laden. But on another front, every American is less secure today because he has failed to slow Iran's nuclear threat.

In his first TV interview as president, he said we should talk to Iran. We're still talking, and Iran's centrifuges are still spinning.

President Obama has thrown allies like Israel under the bus, even as he has relaxed sanctions on Castro's Cuba. He abandoned our friends in Poland by walking away from our missile defense commitments, but is eager to give Russia's President Putin the flexibility he desires, after the election. Under my administration, our friends will see more loyalty, and Mr. Putin will see a little less flexibility and more backbone.

We will honor America's democratic ideals because a free world is a more peaceful world. This is the bipartisan foreign policy legacy of Truman and Reagan. And under my presidency we will return to it once again.

You might have asked yourself if these last years are really the America we want, the America won for us by the greatest generation.

Does the America we want borrow a trillion dollars from China? No.

Does it fail to find the jobs that are needed for 23 million people and for half the kids graduating from college? No.

Are its schools lagging behind the rest of the developed world? No.

And does the America we want succumb to resentment and division? We know the answer.

The America we all know has been a story of the many becoming one, uniting to preserve liberty, uniting to build the greatest economy in the world, uniting to save the world from unspeakable darkness.

Everywhere I go in America, there are monuments that list those who have given their lives for America. There is no mention of their race, their party affiliation, or what they did for a living. They lived and died under a single flag, fighting for a single purpose. They pledged allegiance to the UNITED States of America.

That America, that united America, can unleash an economy that will put Americans back to work, that will once again lead the world with innovation and productivity, and that will restore every father and mother's confidence that their children's future is brighter even than the past.

That America, that united America, will preserve a military that is so strong, no nation would ever dare to test it.

That America, that united America, will uphold the constellation of rights that were endowed by our Creator, and codified in our Constitution.

That united America will care for the poor and the sick, will honor and respect the elderly, and will give a helping hand to those in need.

That America is the best within each of us. That America we want for our children.

If I am elected President of these United States, I will work with all my energy and soul to restore that America, to lift our eyes to a better future. That future is our destiny. That future is out there. It is waiting for us. Our children deserve it, our nation depends upon it, the peace and freedom of the world require it. And with your help we will deliver it. Let us begin that future together tonight.