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Page Turners: Interview With Author Lou Cannon
Aired September 16, 2003 - 15:20 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Biographer and former White House correspondent Lou Cannon has written a new book about a former president, someone who was also an actor who ran for California governor, and won, Ronald Reagan.
Yesterday, I sat down with Lou Cannon and talked to him about his book, which is titled "Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power." Now, since Cannon has already written several books about Ronald Reagan, I asked him why he decided to write one more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LOU CANNON, AUTHOR, "GOVERNOR REAGAN: HIS RISE TO POWER": Well, it seemed to me that all the Reagan people that I talked to thought he wouldn't have ever become president if he hadn't been governor.
And I also had access to all the governor's Cabinet minutes. And so I sort of wanted to tell the story of Ronald Reagan before he became President Reagan. And this was an opportunity to do it.
WOODRUFF: What is it about Ronald Reagan that you saw even in those early days when he was governor that would then go on to propel him, not just to win a second term as governor, but go on to win the presidency?
CANNON: There were two things, Judy.
One is that he was very decisive. These Cabinet minutes surprised me -- and I thought I knew him fairly well -- in that, even in his early decisions -- and, of course, he makes a lot of wrong decisions, but he isn't afraid to decide. He said once, the best time to decide something is when it's before you.
The other thing that was interesting to me about Ronald Reagan, which I have written about before, was how pragmatic he was. Here is a person who talked about squeezing, cutting and trimming the budget of California. And he raised taxes by $1 billion, which is more than $5 billion in today's terms. It was then the largest tax increase by any governor of any state. And he had to do it. And he recognized that he had to do it. And, in the crunch, Ronald Reagan was governed by what he had to do, not just by ideology.
WOODRUFF: Obviously, Lou, we have got another actor right now running for governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger. But for Ronald Reagan, did he benefit always by being underestimated because of his acting background?
CANNON: I think that's right, Judy.
When he was running for governor, the Democrats put him down as somebody who had been upstaged by a chimpanzee in "Bedtime for Bonzo." And I once asked Reagan about that. And he said: "Of course, I was upstaged. An animal will always upstage a human actor."
But Ronald Reagan had been involved in politics for a very long time. He had thought through a lot of issues. He had been president of the Screen Actors Guild. He read a lot. He had a lot of ideas. And the fact that the opposition used actor as a synonym for airhead proved to be very wrong in Ronald Reagan's case, and it could be wrong this time, too.
WOODRUFF: Lou, looking at another parallel, perhaps, between Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger -- in fact, you wrote about it in "The Los Angeles Times" on Monday -- and that is, Reagan got in some trouble when he ran for president, didn't participate in a debate or so. It's the same dilemma that Arnold Schwarzenegger finds himself in right now.
CANNON: It seems to me that Mr. Schwarzenegger did very much in the first debate for the same reason that Ronald Reagan did when he didn't participate in the debates in the Iowa caucus.
He thought he had the election won. After George Bush, the senior George Bush, beat him in Iowa, he participated, as you well know from your own coverage, in the debates in New Hampshire, the celebrated debate at Nashua, where he said, "I paid for this microphone and it's mine." And he blew him out.
I think that Mr. Schwarzenegger, that my argument in "The Los Angeles Times" piece, which I believe was that, if he wants to be like Ronald Reagan, he has to act like Ronald Reagan and pay attention to what happened when Reagan ducked debates and when he participated in them.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WOODRUFF: Lou Cannon, the author of a new book on Governor Ronald Reagan.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired September 16, 2003 - 15:20 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Biographer and former White House correspondent Lou Cannon has written a new book about a former president, someone who was also an actor who ran for California governor, and won, Ronald Reagan.
Yesterday, I sat down with Lou Cannon and talked to him about his book, which is titled "Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power." Now, since Cannon has already written several books about Ronald Reagan, I asked him why he decided to write one more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LOU CANNON, AUTHOR, "GOVERNOR REAGAN: HIS RISE TO POWER": Well, it seemed to me that all the Reagan people that I talked to thought he wouldn't have ever become president if he hadn't been governor.
And I also had access to all the governor's Cabinet minutes. And so I sort of wanted to tell the story of Ronald Reagan before he became President Reagan. And this was an opportunity to do it.
WOODRUFF: What is it about Ronald Reagan that you saw even in those early days when he was governor that would then go on to propel him, not just to win a second term as governor, but go on to win the presidency?
CANNON: There were two things, Judy.
One is that he was very decisive. These Cabinet minutes surprised me -- and I thought I knew him fairly well -- in that, even in his early decisions -- and, of course, he makes a lot of wrong decisions, but he isn't afraid to decide. He said once, the best time to decide something is when it's before you.
The other thing that was interesting to me about Ronald Reagan, which I have written about before, was how pragmatic he was. Here is a person who talked about squeezing, cutting and trimming the budget of California. And he raised taxes by $1 billion, which is more than $5 billion in today's terms. It was then the largest tax increase by any governor of any state. And he had to do it. And he recognized that he had to do it. And, in the crunch, Ronald Reagan was governed by what he had to do, not just by ideology.
WOODRUFF: Obviously, Lou, we have got another actor right now running for governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger. But for Ronald Reagan, did he benefit always by being underestimated because of his acting background?
CANNON: I think that's right, Judy.
When he was running for governor, the Democrats put him down as somebody who had been upstaged by a chimpanzee in "Bedtime for Bonzo." And I once asked Reagan about that. And he said: "Of course, I was upstaged. An animal will always upstage a human actor."
But Ronald Reagan had been involved in politics for a very long time. He had thought through a lot of issues. He had been president of the Screen Actors Guild. He read a lot. He had a lot of ideas. And the fact that the opposition used actor as a synonym for airhead proved to be very wrong in Ronald Reagan's case, and it could be wrong this time, too.
WOODRUFF: Lou, looking at another parallel, perhaps, between Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger -- in fact, you wrote about it in "The Los Angeles Times" on Monday -- and that is, Reagan got in some trouble when he ran for president, didn't participate in a debate or so. It's the same dilemma that Arnold Schwarzenegger finds himself in right now.
CANNON: It seems to me that Mr. Schwarzenegger did very much in the first debate for the same reason that Ronald Reagan did when he didn't participate in the debates in the Iowa caucus.
He thought he had the election won. After George Bush, the senior George Bush, beat him in Iowa, he participated, as you well know from your own coverage, in the debates in New Hampshire, the celebrated debate at Nashua, where he said, "I paid for this microphone and it's mine." And he blew him out.
I think that Mr. Schwarzenegger, that my argument in "The Los Angeles Times" piece, which I believe was that, if he wants to be like Ronald Reagan, he has to act like Ronald Reagan and pay attention to what happened when Reagan ducked debates and when he participated in them.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WOODRUFF: Lou Cannon, the author of a new book on Governor Ronald Reagan.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com