A lot of times, candidates for office, especially incumbents, seem to get drawn into their opponents' arguments, and fighting on their turf, because you want to defend yourself. That's wrong. Fight on your own turf. Make them come to you. Make them explain why they don't agree with your position. I think that a lot of times, too many liberals, progressives, lose because they're afraid to really stand up for what they believe in.

When I campaigned, I'd let them throw a punch, but by gosh, I'd throw two back. I always said, the first rule in politics is never defend, always attack. I still believe that.

When I first arrived to Congress in 1975, I would spend several hours every week with Republicans - having lunch, drinking a beer. But by the time I left last year, that was a rarity. Every moment of free time is eaten up by fundraising. And the advent of all these groups that can threaten passage of this or that with an avalanche of money or a primary opponent has poisoned our politics.

I am a Democrat and I love my party and I want them to have good policies and good candidates, so I hope to be supportive in some way, but I don't intend to be any kind of 'godfather' or something like that.

There is no such thing as a pro-nuclear environmentalist.

There's no one silver bullet, but money really is the root of all evil. The single biggest problem is how much more money is flooding into politics these days. It not only tends to enable a more extreme candidate to get elected, but because so much money is required to bankroll a campaign, everyone spends all their free time fundraising instead of reaching across the aisle.

The burning issue of our time is the growing inequality in income and wealth in our country, and it's got to be addressed. We've got to stop it. It's eroding our politics. It's separating our society into the haves and the have-nots. It's condemning a whole younger set of our population to not be able to enter the middle class. And, it hits hardest in the prairie areas of the United States, our small towns and communities, where the jobs just aren't available and the incomes are low.