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After thinking carefully about how I can best help my fellow Minnesotans, I have decided to not seek election for a different office in 2014. The warm encouragement from many people to run for U.S. senator or the governorship was deeply humbling.

The Minnesotans I talk to are really concerned about what the future holds for their families. They're trying to pay for health care and send their kids to college, they're worried about declining home values, they're scared for a loved one they have serving in Iraq.

Minnesotans are ticket splitters. They look to the candidate, not the party, which is the way it should be, and that's only going to help me.

Minnesotans know the difference between the job of satirist and the job of senator. And so do I.

The next thing I am doing is moving back home to Minnesota and getting involved in politics. I'm looking at a run for Senate in 2008, but in the meantime I am focused on knitting together the progressive network in the upper Midwest.

I think that Minnesota is different because we are proving that tri-partisan government could work, that you do not need to necessarily be a Democrat or a Republican to be successful at governing.

I realized I could make a difference. I could be their voice; I could fight for them... There's no better place to fight for working families than the governor's chair.

I grew up in a politically aware household: very civically-minded, good Minnesota liberals.

I know I have an awful lot to learn from the people of Minnesota.

My family has been in politics a long time in Los Angeles. We very much believe we are elected to represent the people. I mean, I am to give voice to, you know, the over half a million people I represent in my congressional district. I mean, that's the way it works.