A couple weeks ago, we hosted Sen. Tom Harkin and a few of his friends from the Democratic Party to discuss the 2012 presidential campaign and why they felt President Barack Obama deserved four more years in office rather than his opponent, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Honestly, I expected him to give a very quick answer to my question about the possibility of Congress determining the election, one way or another. After all, it was making headlines that day that NBC was preparing for the possibility in its newsroom.

Since he’s been in Congress — either as a Representative or a Senator — for about as long as I’ve been alive, I figured he had at some point in time thought about it and already had a prepared answer.