I know conservatives have the solution. As governor of Florida, I balanced the state budget for eight years in a row while cutting taxes every year. I have dedicated my adult life to revolutionizing schools to make them serve children and parents and not an indifferent bureaucracy.

All Republican successes at the state level can be undone if the GOP continues to lose presidential elections. The party will forfeit its opportunity to chart a better future for the republic. In the last six presidential elections, more than 20 million times, Americans made the conscious decision that someone other than a Republican offered the nation a better future. This is because too often the conservative message was focused on what we are against, not on what we support.

We can learn from our mistakes. We must move beyond the divisive and extraneous issues that currently define public debate. The Republican Party must not write off entire segments of American society by assuming that its principles have limited appeal.

For the same reason that millions of immigrants from every nation were drawn to American shores, we need to draw into the Republican Party people from every corner of society. That can be done, because conservative principles, not liberal dogma, best reflect the ideals that made this nation great.