The Constitution is brilliant for accountability; for posing factions against each other, to fight amongst themselves in government, which protects our liberty. But also in ensuring that decision-making is made by those who the people can hold accountable.
President Obama, when he was elected, he could have been a unifying figure. He could have chosen to be a leader on race relations and bring us together. And he hasn't done that, he's made decisions that I think have inflamed racial tensions that have divided us rather than bringing us together.
The judgment that every voter is making of every one of us [running for presidency] who has the experience, who has the vision, who has the judgment to be commander in chief. That is the most important decision for the voters to make. That's a standard I'm held to. And it's a standard everyone else is held to.
If you're going to decide to run a data-driven campaign, decision-making has to follow it.
A very good friend of mine spent a fair amount of time doing postmortems and met with a number of the senior folks on the Romney campaign and they spent, what was it, $140, $160 million on data. And this friend of mine, who is a very sharp thinker, asked a series of questions, but the most important one he asked, he said, "What decisions did you make differently because of the data?" And he's coming from the private equity world where he wants to know, OK, and the answer from virtually every single senior Romney person was "nothing."
You have to be willing to have the decision-making follow the data.
The proper way to make policy decisions under our Constitution in America is for the people to do so through the democratic process.
I am where a great many voters are, which is that I am listening and watching and coming to a decision.
I'm a big believer that good policy is good politics. And so, when it comes to making decisions on policy issues, what I endeavor to do is simply speak the truth.
As president, I wouldn't be making the day-to-day combat decisions. The job of the commander-in-chief is to lay the objective out and then you rely upon the generals and admirals and commanders to give you their expert advice on the tools needed to carry out that objective.
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