MATTHEWS: Do you believe if you were a secular politician who had never expressed his religious faith that you would have been less of a target to the Democrats?

DELAY: No. I think I was a target of the Democrats for many reasons.

We changed the culture of Washington, D.C., not just taking the majority. We changed the culture of this town. We changed the country, we’ve changed the world, having a Republican majority.

The Democrats and the left hate that. Number one, they hate the fact that what they believe in has been rejected by the American people. And secondly, they hate the fact that we are actually doing the things we told the American people we would do.

We’ve spent the last 10 years turning around 40 years of the left’s dominance of Washington, D.C., and the federal government. And they knew as majority leader I was starting to lead us to do the things that conservatives have wanted to do all along. Get rid of the tax code. End abortion as we know it. Hold the judiciary accountable. Fight the war on terror. All of those things are things that they just hate.

I’m not whining. They zeroed in on me and announced publicly that they were going to destroy me personally and destroy my character. And they’ve tried for now 10 years, and they’re still losing.

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MATTHEWS: Well, I believe everything you say you believe in. I think most people do, even those who don’t like you. But there’s a contradiction in what you just said, Congressman.

You said that you were giving up your seat because you were fearful that a loss of a Republican seat, which you believe you can save by giving it to another candidate, was critical. And if you have won your battle for cultural change in Washington, why are the Democrats so close to taking back the House that one seat would make the difference?

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DELAY: No, it’s not one seat. Every seat is precious, particularly when we have as small a margin as we’ve had to deal with over the last 11 years. And you have to deal with it that way. It’s precious to the Republican majority and it’s precious to my constituents.

My constituents deserve better and they deserve a Republican, not a liberal Democrat representing them.

MATTHEWS: Let me talk to you about the topics you raised and I’m going to just raise them with you. Here's your chance to talk to a pretty good national audience tonight. You were in the news. You’re a news maker tonight.

DELAY: I didn’t notice.

MATTHEWS: You are. There’s a lot of cameras in this room, in fact, more than usual.

What are the stakes for the voter out there who is thinking about voting, personally, as a switch voter, back and forth voter, trying to decide which party to vote for this November?

I want to ask you, you know that one of the most powerful tools of the Congress is the subpoena power. It’s in the hands of the Reform Committee; it’s in the hands of the Judiciary Committee.

What would happen if Henry Waxman got the subpoena power in the Government Reform Committee? What would happen if John Conyers of Michigan got the subpoena power? Would they go after the president?

DELAY: Sure, they would. They’ve tried the whole time we’ve been in the majority, just look at what they’ve been doing.

Henry Waxman is constantly calling for investigations, mostly frivolous investigations to make political points.

John Conyers has even called for the impeachment of the president. What do you think he’s going to do if he’s chairman of the Judiciary Committee?

MATTHEWS: You have an inside view, Congressman, of what they will do.

I know their records. I know their philosophies.

But you tell me, the man in the news today, do you believe that the Republicans, if they lose the House, will turn over the subpoena power to people who will try to impeach the president?

DELAY: Absolutely.

John Conyers not too long ago held a mock meeting of all the left and talked about impeaching the president, and he’s called for impeaching the president. Do you think when he gets the gavel as chairman of the Judiciary Committee he won’t try to impeach the president? Of course he will.

MATTHEWS: Do you think more modestly they might push for censure along the lines of Russ Feingold in the Senate? Do you think they’re going to push for his head or just a big wound?

DELAY: I think they’ll try to go for his head.

I think some of the more reasonable thinking Democrats will try to pull them down and away from walking off that cliff, but you’ve got to know these people. John Conyers is left of the left.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about something I know you care a lot about, and a lot of people watching do, which is abortion.

Even a lot of people who oppose abortion legalization or oppose its de-legalization don’t like it. Do you think if the Democrats get back in they’re going to push for reversing the ban on partial birth?

DELAY: Absolutely.

If you’re in charge, you’re going to advance your agenda. And they’ll try to reverse everything that we’ve done, not just abortion. That's one of the regrets I have. I wanted before I ended my career to end abortion as we know it. And I’m not going to be able to do that. I hope to work on it outside the House.

MATTHEWS: OK. That’s an open door. I want you to talk about that door. You mentioned that last night when you gave me the heads up. You said although you’re leaving the House, you’re not leaving the conservative movement. Tell me how you can work outside?

DELAY: Well, one of the things that this decision-making process showed me, that I have a lot of friends that are leaders of the conservative movement. They value my talents and they listen to me, and I think I can work with them to unify the conservative movement.

One thing that I’ve always been jealous of the Democrats on the left is that they work together. I mean, you have pro-abortionists working for labor policy, you have labor unions working for abortion policy. The greenies work for each other.

We are fractured, and always have been fractured, mainly because we are individualists. But I think I can be a unifying force. I can speak out around the country about the conservative agenda. And I’m looking forward to that. I’m kind of excited about it.

CONTINUED : "I did things differently..."

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