From the RNC.

Excerpts from prepared remarks of Governor George E. Pataki

“On that terrible day, a nation became a neighborhood. All Americans became New Yorkers.

“So, what I’ve wanted to do for a long time was say thank you — in front of our country, and with our children watching: Thank you America, from the very bottom of New York’s heart.”

• * *

“Every four years people say ‘This is the most important election of our lifetime.’ This time it’s true.”

• * *

“I want to help voters compare President Bush’s record of achievement with Senator Kerry’s. That way they’ll be able to see the difference, which is that President Bush has a record of achievement.”

• * *

“He inherited a recession, and then came September 11th. But George Bush said he would turn around the economy and create new jobs.

He said he’d do it. And he did.”

• * *

“I thank God that on September 11th, we had a president who didn’t wring his hands and wonder what America had done wrong to deserve this attack.

“I thank God we had a president who understood that America was attacked, not for what we had done wrong, but for what we do right.”

• * *

“On September 11th Al Qaeda attacked again. But this time they made a terrible mistake.

“There’s one thing they didn’t bank on.

“They didn’t bank on George W. Bush.”

• * *

“Senator Kerry says, “America should go to war not when it wants to go to war but when it has to go to war.”

“Well, excuse me, Senator: the fire fighters and cops who ran into those burning towers and died on September 11th didn’t want to go to war, they were heroes in a war they didn’t even know existed.

“America did not choose this war.

“But we have a President who chooses to win it.”

• * *

“This is no ordinary time. The stakes could not be higher.

“Fate has handed our generation a grave new threat to freedom.

And fortune has given us a leader who will defend that freedom.

“This is no ordinary time. And George W. Bush is no ordinary leader.”

The last line is an intentional reference to a book he has read by former Harvard professor Doris Kearns Goodwin entitled “No Ordinary Time” (No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II).