BATAVIA – Bill Foster often describes himself as a "businessman and a scientist," and he soon can add "former congressman" to his list of descriptors.

Foster – who made history as the first Democrat elected to the 14th Congressional District seat since 1939 and only the fourth in its 137-year existence – recently shared his thoughts on his future, his brief tenure in Washington, D.C., and politics in general.

Foster lost his seat in the Nov. 2 election to Republican Randy Hultgren, who will be sworn in on Wednesday.

Foster said he would take a vacation before considering his options – including a possible return to public service in the Obama administration.

"Some of these sound like great fun," Foster, 55, said.

"These are venture capital firms, green energy startups. There may be opportunities to do public service in the executive branch ... or one of the departments. If they are good opportunities, then I'd consider them, a way of returning to public service that I'd feel all right about."

Looking back on his three years in service, Foster said the thing he would like to see change the most is cooperation between the parties.

"This has been the honor of a lifetime to represent the people and the area where I'd raised my children and worked for 25 years," he said. "One of my biggest disappointments is just how partisan the whole situation is. Washington is full of people who say they are eager to cooperate. And in fact, every chance they get, they try to undercut any record of accomplishment by the other side. It just feels like to me the place is under control by street gangs. It was a problem all three years I was there."

In fact, Foster sees the results of the primary and general election in which he lost as an extension of that partisanship.

"Basically, the moderates were wiped out on both sides," he said. "In the primaries, all the moderate Republicans were wiped out, including very good guys like Mike Castle [R-Delaware] who worked with us ... He was a member of the financial services committee, a very good and thoughtful guy, very experienced. And he was the one who was wiped out in the primary by this lady who insisted she wasn't a witch."

Foster also cited Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as another reason not to hope for compromise.

"Sen. McConnell, ... said his first priority is to make sure that President Obama is not re-elected," Foster said. "So when that is what the thinking process is, rather than any patriotic duty to your country ... It's about their careers and getting personal power."

Foster called the drubbing moderates took in the election an irony of politics.

"One of the parties makes a big enough mess out of the economy and turns it over to the other party, they end up benefiting from their own incompetence – just because of the length of time it takes to turn around an economy that's been badly damaged." Foster said.

He said during the last 18 months of the Bush administration, the average American lost more than 10 years of life savings and about 25 percent of their net worth through the real estate bust, the stock market crash and the financial collapse.

"This was all before March 2009, when Barack took over," Foster said. "The average American lost $50,000 in the last 18 months prior to March 2009 ... the largest destruction of wealth in American history."

Foster said he hopes his former constituents pay attention to whether their representatives are solving problems or sending out sound bites.

"What is really needed are people who are willing to compromise and realize it's a good thing to get half a loaf and come back the next session of Congress and get more," Foster said. "Are they getting legislation passed and compromising and not engaging in symbolic posturing?"

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Foster said he is proud of voting for health care, food safety, the Wall Street reform act and the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

"That is going to really improve the economic life of our country," Foster said of the Wall Street bill. "There are things everyone can understand, like getting rid of credit card abuses, reining in abusive practices of banks ... And stabilizing the system so it won't collapse again."

The economic collapse cost families in America $17 trillion and 7 million to 8 million jobs, he said.

"And so the people that will benefit from having better regulation on Wall Street and the economy will benefit 30 to 40 years from now, when the system doesn't collapse," Foster said. "It's hard to get political credit for that sort of stuff."

As to the health care bill, he said when he and his wife, physicist Aesook Byon, 50, eat dinner out, people come up and thank him for that vote.

As to the TARP legislation, Foster said the banks had enough money, but not enough cash on hand.

"There was an opportunity for the taxpayer to rescue the banking system and get its money out wholly or in part or turn a profit," Foster said. "We essentially got all our money back out."

What was particularly galling to Foster was the relentless pounding by some news outlets and other politicians who kept calling it a "bank bailout."

"It was frustrating for the two years since then, to hear 'Well you spent money bailing out the banks.' Whereas, in fact, the money was not spent, it has been returned with interest to the taxpayer," Foster said. "The calculation [in lying] seems not to be what is correct and true and best for the country but what can I get away with saying that will benefit me and my party politically."

The food safety bill was critical to giving the Food and Drug Administration the power to order a food recall, he said.

"One person in six gets sick from food poisoning every year. About the same number of people die from food poisoning every year that died in Sept. 11, about 3,000 a year," Foster said. "And the FDA did not have the power to order a food recall ... because of special interests and lobbying prevented that. I'm very proud that got fixed."

Is another political run in the cards?

"Right now, I'm feeling very good about being back home and just watching the kids ice skate on the river," Foster said, looking out an apartment window that overlooks Batavia's Depot Pond.

"And [I] remember ice skating with my kids and in the summer, watching the paddle boats."