Not all is perfect. Cannon freely admits that many aspects of government need to change. But in pushing for those changes, he said voters and representatives alike need to be patient and less critical of one another.

And Cannon has taken plenty of criticism and heat himself in the past decade. In June, he survived his fourth primary challenge, and most recently he was named one of the most corrupt members of Congress because of his close dealings with his lobbyist brother Joe Cannon, who also sits on the board of the Deseret Morning News. During his tenure in Congress, he was been embroiled in lawsuit involving his business affairs and was named in a sexual harassment claim made against one of his staff.

"It think this is about as harsh a time as I've ever seen in politics," Cannon said. "It's been harsh in the past, of course ... but there's this perception that everybody has the right to criticize anybody in public office. It's astonishing.

He said people need to understand that in a "consensus-based" political system things happen by increments.

"There are very wrong things in the way we do things," Cannon said. "We can improve greatly. But neither extreme is going to be successful immediately."

Still, Cannon remains highly optimistic regarding America's future.

"(America) really ought to be that shining city on a hill that Ronald Reagan talked about," he said. "It has never been more of a shining city on a hill, and we have the opportunity to make it a greater, more open, more lustrous shining city on a hill."

Among those key issues coming before the Congress, in the coming months and years, Cannon lists immigration, free trade and national defense.

"We have to balance those issues against civil liberties; we've got to build in safeguards," he said.

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E-mail: jtwitchell@desnews.com