It appears to me that no one has learned a thing; that Wall Street is still operating as if 2008 never happened.

I always run ahead of the ticket [compared to Democratic presidential candidates]. But this time there were a lot of people that just voted party line, a lot more than usual.

There's no question about it. If you look at the map, there's hardly any [Democrats representing rural districts]. There's me, [Rick] Nolan, [Tim] Walz, [Dave] Loebsack and Cheri Bustos. So that's five. And all the rest of them are in urban cities. That's a problem.

Well, the sugar guys have been dealing with NAFTA ever since it passed. Now we've got Mexico dumping sugar that's subsidized by the Mexican government into our market in violation of the World Trade Organization, because NAFTA gave them open access to our sugar market. They claim they're not subsidized, but the government owns half the industry in Mexico.

NAFTA's been a big problem for sugar.

[People] think [the government is] coddling people, like when people's feelings are hurt at the colleges and they send somebody in to make them feel better. Stuff like that drives [voters here] crazy.

You can't have a majority party in Minnesota or throughout the country without [support from] the people in these [rural] districts. Given the position [the Democratic Party] has taken, it's very hard to see how you can do that.