The candidate address we need:

My fellow Americans, our nation stands divided in a time of great danger.

If elected your president, I will work to heal that division. Our very survival depends upon it. This is a time for calm and reason, and common-sense answers are found in the middle, not at the extremes.

Our nation’s security will be my administration’s No. 1 priority. We will, without apology, lead the fight for freedom against radical Islamist terrorists.

America’s borders will be secured with new aggressive policing policies, additional border enforcers and intensive vetting of new immigrants wishing to enter our country.

We will establish a reasonable annual quota for new immigration.

At the same time we will work with Muslims already here who believe in America, and are contributing to their communities. I will introduce a program identifying Muslim leaders in various communities and enlist those leaders to join us in the fight against the terrorists.

America will take the fight, with the help of an alliance with other countries, to the terrorists, and we will not flinch from whatever military commitment becomes necessary to eradicate the enemy.

At home, we will concentrate efforts on the economy.

My jobs program will feature individual income tax reforms plus incentives to private business that will cause them to invest large amounts of capital in existing and new businesses.

Corporate taxes, highest in the free world, will be cut in half to 20 percent.

That will produce thousands of new, better-paying jobs, as business, with the help of government, restarts the greatest economy in the world, and the annual increase in our gross domestic product doubles to at least 4 percent. As more good jobs are created, income equality will improve.

Only growing the economy, while practicing sensible tax and spending policies will produce reduction in a national debt that is our other great threat.

Increased taxation cannot lead us out of an economic maelstrom.

As your president, I will immediately address the problem of our burgeoning health care costs.

Despite six years of the Affordable Care Act, too many people are still finding health care to be unaffordable, or only available with a high deductible.

However, people must have health insurance, and it is unrealistic to think that this program can be revoked.

Instead, the sensible approach is to form a new consortium of providers.

Business and government needs to find meaningful adjustments through use of the free market incentives rather than government mandates.

Free health care would be wonderful, if possible, but it is not a birthright. Government’s responsibility is to make sure it is available and affordable through the private sector, not to become the provider at a crippling cost to taxpayers.

If elected, I will put together a private sector/government panel that will find adjustments to the Affordable Care Act that will achieve the originally intended goals.

In the specific case of women’s health care, valuable services provided women should not be curtailed, but abortion is an issue outside normal, customary health care.

Women’s health care clinics are indispensable; abortion under any and all circumstances is not. Like anything else, reasonable restrictions should apply. The rights of a mother and her unborn child are not mutually exclusive.

If elected, I will concentrate much of my efforts on improving education in America. Our nation’s youth must be trained for the jobs of our new economy, as technology has replaced so much of our traditional trades. Our older workers must now be retrained to find better paying jobs.

Since education and a well-trained workforce is the No. 1 component for a successful jobs program, I will propose a new emphasis on vocational education and appoint a leader for that purpose.

Providing a college education is costly, therefore like everything else in life, those who can must contribute. But the onerous debt incurred by many students will be addressed.

I will propose a student loan program that provides a refinancing opportunity at an extremely low interest rate over an extended period of time, and will ask Congress to increase financial aid to our colleges and universities to reduce tuition costs for students.

Finally, under my administration, discrimination will never be tolerated, but religious freedoms will not be infringed upon either.

So, my fellow Americans, if I am elected your president, no one will be left behind, as we reignite the country’s powerful economic engine, while defending with all our might the country we love — the land of the free, home of the brave, sweet land of liberty.

Together again, we will proudly become the United States of all Americans.

Don Roberts, a former city councilor and former vice chairman of the Charter Commission in Augusta, is a trustee of the Greater Augusta Utility District.