"Nobody thought that I would be elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont.
At one point he explained why he had refused during the campaign to discuss what raises or contract provisions he planned to offer the city's unions by saying, "At the risk of credentialing the attacks on my self-confidence and arrogance, since I thought I would be elected at the start of this campaign, I resisted making excessive promises in the belief that I'd have to keep them".
And trust me, I'd be elected president too if I stayed in.
It does give you some sense of the sort of comical aspects of this, that Russert's original interview was literally a week after I'd been elected to the Senate, and I was already fielding questions about higher office.
Sure, this did come at the end of a term when I'd been elected to four committees, produced a play, played some volleyball, applied for a part-time job and written the odd essay.
Although it seems well established that many Americans are burdened with costly and yet woefully ineffective health care, if I'd been elected president, I probably would have focused my attention on the financial crisis and the economy and moved more slowly on health care reform.
A year before her death, I went to see her just after I'd been elected to Congress, and although she was ailing and hadn't recognized any of my saintly brothers, she knew me and said, 'You're as good as anybody,' which is the highest praise I ever got from her.
And if every candidate would take the same tack, I don't know who would be elected, but I know that we as a party and a country would be better off.
"My decision process was that, like many others, I never believed that Trump would be elected".
I've never been much of a poll watcher, but I understand the polls showed he would be elected overwhelmingly.
I hoped that on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton would be elected, and he would be proven wrong on the second count, too.
