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I'm not a lobbyist.

I am not a lobbyist. I am not a political activist. I am not a leader, as far as I'm concerned.

My four years as governor, I never met with a lobbyist once, never. Not one lobbyist got in my office.

We are legislators, not public works contractors. People look up to us to make serious laws that could change the lives of a great number of people or could change the way society is run or managed.

People who build family businesses are not classically trained. They have to deal with an enormous amount of politics. You think corporate politics are tough? Go work for your dad or your mom.

At the White House, everybody works for the same person. They're all part of the same company. But on Capitol Hill, they're all independent contractors. They all work for themselves. That's a formula for getting news.

Congress has turned its back on America's working families. There are Teamster families in every congressional district in America, and those families vote. Those who would oppose these families have done so at their own political peril.

I don't like to work for politicians because I hate to work on anything that you can't give back if it doesn't work. I sell products. I do a commercial for, say, Meow Mix, and you don't like it, you get your money back. You can return it. Politicians, you can't return. You're with them for four more years. And that's scary.

The institution of the family has very few friends in Washington. There are lobbyists in Washington for every possible entity, from the possum-growers of America to every kind of crazy thing. There's somebody in Washington paid to advance the cause of that particular business, but there's not a lot of support for the family.