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like the office they commemorate presidential libraries are living institutions certainly it is my hope that the reagan library will become a dynamic intellectual forum where scholars interpret the past and policy makers debate the future welcome to the ronald reagan presidential foundation and institutes virtual events series to fulfill president reagan's mission of making the reagan library a dynamic intellectual forum our center for public affairs programming offers lectures and forums presenting perspectives on important public policy issues of the day each year we bring you 20 to 30 events from politicians authors members of the media business and military leaders and more since the march 2020 closure of many businesses across our great country the reagan foundation is now bringing its events online to ensure that we are still delivering world-class content even if you can't get to our hilltop to watch it in person in this week's center for public affairs virtual event we invite you to join us for a conversation with senator connie mack cornelius mcgillicuddy iii popularly known as connie mack is a republican politician who served three terms in the u.s house of representatives between 1983 and 1988 and two terms in the u.s senate between 1989 and 2001 before announcing his retirement in 2000 in 1988 during remarks at a campaign fundraising luncheon president reagan said you can count on connie mack to defend freedom to defend america to defend the taxpayer and to defend the family throughout his service in both the house and senate connie mack supported the passage of legislation related to health care financial modernization modification of the tax code and public housing reform a cancer survivor senator mack was a strong advocate for cancer research early detection and treatment co-founding the senate cancer coalition fun fact his paternal grandfather was connie mack former owner and manager of baseball's philadelphia athletics and member of the baseball hall of fame senator mack joins us today to discuss his recent book citizen mac politics and honorable calling which former vice president dick cheney calls an account of his spiritual journey which is honest humble and explains much about the man in his life of service we now invite you to enjoy our virtual program coming to you from our air force one pavilion leadership academy oval office with senator connie mack and reagan foundation and institute executive director john highbush citizen mac senator mack connie mack um i i read this book and i just tell you it's a it's a wonderful journey back in time and and an incredible memoir thanks for writing it and i know that everyone who tunes in to all of our shows at the reagan foundation and library just going to love it so congratulations for writing the book thank you thank you so much it was fun to do it was a great experience just to write it yeah well how tell me how is priscilla your family tell me i hope all the whole mac family is doing well thank you for asking about them we're all doing super priscilla she's had some medical problems over the years i mean as we get older that happens to us but she's come through them really extremely well she's as strong as ever has that wonderful personality that she does and the kids are great you know our son connie was in washington for years uh he just recently moved to fort lauderdale so he's back in florida debbie's in up in saint pete in that area the grandkids are great and great-grandchildren are wonderful so uh the lord has blessed us and we're very pleased yeah that's that's great to hear um so i want to go back and review history a little bit um and go to the time before you even ran for the your house seat um i wonder if many people remember um you were a banker you were in the banking community in florida and that's essentially the platform that got you even interested in an issue community issues and and running for office in the first place right yeah i would you know that that's interesting a community banker because i was not some banker out of new york or atlanta i was a community banker you know we had assets of you know maybe 60 60 million dollars you know 100 million dollars you know we were small banks we you were involved in your community so you really got to know the concerns uh when a person would come in and say they wanted to borrow some money you ask them a few questions you really learn about what they're experiencing and clearly those days were very very difficult for people uh interest rates uh you know we were we were actually paying six sixteen percent for certificates of deposits back in those days so you can imagine what the rates uh you know 18 19 20 being charged on on loans mortgages were being made at 14 something like that i mean inflation was out of control i mean there really was a there was a there was a loss of faith in our country at that time and a real concern about our future and that's kind of you know those discussions are one of the things that kind of led me into my involvement in politics but also a very active congress in the 70s with respect to financial regulation uh just got me so angry and i would come at home you know and i'd be complaining about it priscilla would look at me and say you know connie either do something about it or shut up you know so yeah that was a challenge i had to respond to sure sure uh and then uh and i really didn't i have a faint memory of this but i i wasn't reminded of it until i read your book but you had a brother named michael who you obviously were really close to and um when you were young when he was young something happened that that really influenced your life tell us about that yeah well that's a that's a very important um aspect of my life um i am one of eight children uh the four oldest uh we were one each a year apart and so my brother dennis is a year younger than i am my brother michael was a couple years younger than i am and uh we were very close uh as boys growing up together uh we went to uh high school at the same high school we went to college together we maternity brothers we were very very close i i have deep admiration for all of my brothers and sisters mike for some reason just seemed to be special uh he had a great sense of humor he could walk into a piano bar and sit down and you know just start playing the piano and sing songs to people all around he's the kind of person people love he was incredibly bright my brother dennis graduated from law school at the university of florida number two in his class with high with honors michael graduated number one in his class with high honors um both very very bright guys um and so michael was very special and unfortunately at a very young age in his 20s he was diagnosed with with melanoma and that melanoma was located on the on on the top of his head and and so that it was it was hidden from view and it grew and eventually grew to the point where it became malignant and uh here he is in his in his final uh year of law school it may have been his final semester of law school he has to have this what would appear to be was going to have a radical neck surgery which is a major major um in essence reconstruction of the side of the face it didn't turn out to be quite that severe but the operation was very significant he did not drop out of his of school he continued and finished that finished it on time graduated with his other members and uh and fought that cancer for 12 years which was almost unheard of for melanoma back in those days and in being with michael uh those days uh uh i you noticed a smile just came across my face you might think you'd be in tears but we had such wonderful times talking about life and uh and how to deal with life which led to you know kind of asking those questions about why am i here what am i supposed to be doing with my life and that was a major major influence it gave me a period of time of introspection to really ask those questions and eventually uh with the thanks of a fellow by the name of don shank the reverend of a church in in cape coral florida uh i was doing some counseling with he was also doing some work for me in the bank and uh he kept encouraging me kind of you're such a wonderful person you know we all hear those kind of nice things about ourselves and we you know okay all right you know you don't really take them seriously but he he he said it in in such a way one time to me i looked at him and said don you know what i hear you saying to me is the biggest sin a person can commit is the failure to use the talents that god has given you and i am not kidding you john when i said that i knew exactly what i had to do i mean exactly and i must tell you i was scared to death i hate her just so i'm driving home and tears are coming down my eyes uh i'm worried about i knew i knew had to run for the congress and i got home and i was getting ready to go jogging i put putting on my shoes priscilla came into the room she said what you doing and i said well get ready to go jogging uh i said um what would you say if i told you i was going to run for the congress she said great go for it one i have often wondered suppose she had said i don't think it's a good idea you know whether it really would have happened but so michael you know michael's life and his death you know just had such an enormous impact uh on me and obviously still a missing yeah and it comes in it just sings right through in the book and i i have a lot of you know empathy for you that whole story you know my own personal story i fought a truly terminal cancer for five years and and think i've beat it i i hope i have and it's so when i read that your brother michael had gone through that kind of a struggle for 12 years it just really you get a sense for for the battle he had to fight and how it affected you and and the story you just told is uh seems to me there was a calling you heard a call in that whole story right and that's uh no question about it no questions yeah yeah a neat neat story and i um his story affected you in two ways i think it led you to decide okay i need to make a contribution to the community i'm going to run for congress but it also got you involved in the whole the the issue of cancer and and where is there a cure and how can we fight this disease right it affected your career outside the senate and and as well in the senate right well that's a good point john i mean yes it ha i mean yes it changed my life both leading me into politics but it also led me into this effort of finding a cure for cancer it's just interesting before we started talking i just got off a call on an advisory board that i had set up for the moffitt cancer center in tampa which is a great great institution um and so yes my my life went down that path as well i mean and when i when i ended up and will probably get into other aspects of this but when i ended up winning the senate race within the first week after uh the race was over we sat down and talked about what are the things you're going to do when you're in the senate and one of the things that happens when a person goes from a two-year term to a six-year term it's kind of like wow you have time to broaden your horizons a little bit and to become involved in more issues and i remember arthur finkelstein asking me well what's the thing you really have passion about and i said i said cancer cancer research in particular and from that moment on uh my life has been you know down that path uh of trying to find dollars for research uh and having actually been chairman of the board of the moffitt cancer center in for eight years still on the advisory board today so yes a whole new life opened up there as well yeah i want to i'm promise you i want to get back to the uh the subject of uh arthur finkelstein because i know how important he was in your political career or your life in many people's lives uh but i let's let's go to 1982 you success you had a success you you never met with anything but success in each uh each of your races but you first one in 82 so you were on you're part of the reagan revolution you're on the the front end right and you you entered the house in 82 along with uh some other uh major figures one of them being john mccain right absolutely yeah yeah and john became a dear friend uh and john kasich was another that came in that same uh same time but john and i um i nicknamed him quick draw mcgraw because you know john could come at you with the guns ablazing right yeah but he's a wonderful man um i had a great admiration for him very close over the years we both ended up uh you know we came in together into the house he went to the senate two years before i did i followed him into the senate and we spent uh you know my 12 years in the senate together you know we both had really different approaches to you know we had different personalities we i think each had great respect for for the other and it was a real tragedy when we lost him but he was a great great leader uh for the for the country yeah yeah you're right it was fun to see you uh the two of you work together like you say different styles but but much of the same philosophy right in fact if i can if i see if i remember if i memorized it you know what was connie mack about it was less taxes less government smaller government a strong defense and more freedom right we came up with you know we came up with that uh tagline which you know some people just kind of discount as you know a throwaway line but the reality is less taxing less spending less government more freedom uh you know literally we would be in conversations about new pieces of legislation and ideas and and someone either me or someone in the staff would say well what is this what does that do with respect to less taxing or what does that do for the spending the growth of government what does it do to the importance of freedom so it really became um a test for us as to you know the things we said and the things we pursued yeah sometimes a bumper sticker actually has real value right it had meaning for you now um i knew about this particular group because i worked on the house side when you were there but i bet you a lot of people in the in the public don't and that's this group that you were invited to join uh very early on of of of members in the house called the conservative opportunity society cos right and i i think i remember you all meeting every wednesday morning and uh it was a tight group knit group of members tell me how did that group influence your outlook in congress and affect you yeah yeah absolutely but i wonder if john if we could you know before i get into that question let me just go back one step because again this we are at the reagan library and uh i think it's important for for those of us who love ronald reagan uh to hear this story so again this is night this is 1980 and i'm in that bank that we talked about earlier uh and because of conversations with all those different people the the 1980 election became very very important to me i'd never i mean sure i voted and all that kind of stuff before but this one was just for some reason really really focused uh i was a i was a democrat at the time um and so you've got carter and reagan running and i'm observing this and i kind of came to my own conclusion about what the race was all about i mean jimmy carter basically was telling us that we're going to have to learn to live with limits for the first time you know americans are going to have to learn with limits that uh we have limited resources and and the answer to all of our problems is to bring into washington a larger wiser group of bureaucrats to make the decision about how to allocate limited resources that was his perspective reagan on the other hand said no that's not the way it works it works because of free markets free enterprise capitalism uh that's what built america that's what's going to make america great again so i mean i'm watching this and i'm thinking to myself i hope america decides you know what the right answer is so we're sitting there we're someone are sitting there watching the election that night and i am blown away uh victory that ronald reagan had in november of 1980 uh and not only that reagan had but also all of the senate new senators that came into the into the u.s senate and a number of new house seats that were picked up by the republicans and i turned to priscilla that night and i said this is the most important thing that's happened and somehow another i've got to become involved in it that was two years before you know i had no idea at that time that i would end up uh running for running for office but i i just had to get that story in because it's another one of those i mean ronald reagan inspired me oh welcome believe you me um i i got some questions for you on on ronald reagan uh so get ready um uh but but thank you for putting um the president reagan in the order he deserves in this conversation because your point is hey he was one of the key reasons you decided to to go for it right right absolutely absolutely so there i am now and do you ask about the conservative opportunity society first thing people might say where in the world did you guys ever come up with a name like that and newt gingrich newt gingrich was the you know the intellectual and the emotional and the physical power behind uh this this organization um you know a little caucus if you will within the republican members of the house um and he can't you know he said the reason we came up with this name is there's the liberal welfare state or the conservative opportunity society conservative as opposed to liberal welfare opportunity state and society and that's that's how how we got this name but this was a band of guys that got together and said we're tired of being in the minority and one of the one of the difficulties that you have though is we had some great leaders wonderful people um so how do you how do you say you guys aren't doing enough you know you're not being aggressive enough um we don't want to hurt them but we want to move we want to move uh the party forward and uh we had help from jack kemp and from trent lot you know and dick cheney they were the younger members of the leadership um and we just basically identified five different i don't remember exactly which of those issues were you know like the balanced budget atlanta and veto the president's crime reform package but five different items and we set teams up if you will to pursue each of those and and then and the teams had different components to it one was kind of like the the philosophical the actual legislative uh action but then there was also another group that kind of said we have to help make this thing move forward so we have to we got to get speakers to come out and talk about these particular things and we came up you know with the we spoke special orders uh they're called on on the outside and we would go out there and give speeches on the floor and tip o'neill got so angry with us i mean he really did not like us i mean he did not like it um he referred but by the way he referred to us as the three stooges and the three stooges he was was gingrich walker and weber i think so i took i had this great picture of my grandfather uh playing baseball with the three stooges so i got that picture had it signed and took it and gave it to tip o'neill i think i got a chuckle at him but he was still pretty hot under the collar but it was a great group and i think it was the beginning of changing america with respect to more conservative approach to government yeah that was a classic uh newt gingrich style guerrilla activity from the back benchers who found a lot of inventive ways to call attention to those issues and to start really making a difference right yeah for example there was a fellow from florida who was for the balanced budget constitutional amendment so we had this process where we would go down during the one minutes each day and we would each person would get up and say mr mr speaker i'm here today to ask the uh ask you to bring to the floor of the house uh a bill for a balanced budget constitutional amendment of course would immediately get overruled they wouldn't bring it to the floor but one day one day the only democrat on the floor was this poor fella from from florida uh who was who says he was for the balanced budget constitutional member but he had to stand up and object to our bringing so it was a little difficult for him to go back home and say i'm for the balanced budget but yeah didn't you just uh so anyway we did all kinds of things to kind of push our agenda forward yeah then you had a really neat idea and i remember this at the time and it's something i think that really helped introduce you to the broader conference to get better known and to get some start to get some attention upon yourself and uh and that was when you circulated a very important letter uh that that dealt with the subject important ronald reagan uh and it was all about tax cuts so tell us about that well again i i've thought about that uh uh many times over the years how something very very very simple had such a major impact on on that particular uh debate about the third year of president reagan's tax cut so this is 1983. uh i've just been sworn in uh a major um issue for uh major the majority leader uh jim wright was to eliminate the third year of reagan's tax cut one of my staff folks um it could have been david blee could have been anyway uh you know he said you know congressman we we think you want to go down and get 143 signatures on this letter saying that if the congress passes legislation to repeal the third year of the tax cut and ronald reagan vetoes it we are committed to sustaining that veto and so here i am a new member i didn't know anybody i didn't know what i was doing frankly other than these guys said it was a good idea i said okay so i went down to the floor and i'd walk around and i'd get these and sure enough we you know we got we got enough signatures and there's an interesting part of the story about john kasich who's a dear friend but john came up to me young young fellow was just old enough to get into the congress had been in the state legislature so he knew a little bit more about politics than i did he came up sat beside me and he said connie um i think you're really you're really wasting your time i mean why are you spending all this time doing this insignificant thing so anyway fast forward you know a couple of weeks later we're at this huge event for president reagan big fundraiser thousands and thousands of people and the president gives up gives his speech and he reaches his pocket pulls out this letter that he's received from congressman connie mack that has saved the third year of his tax cut now please so john kasich came up to me not long after that and said i will never ever give you political advice again you must have been beaming i i i think if i recall that might have been at the house senate dinner uh you know with like you say with thousands of uh supporters right right right absolutely yeah that brings back some really fond memories but but again the point though in all of that is how you know a very simple thing this is not you know headline kind of activity this is you know you look at a problem fortunately my staff had a great idea i was naive enough to think okay we can do something about this went down there and got it done and it made a difference and it did it it is what uh a newt came up to me afterwards because i didn't know who knew it wasn't i'm not that's that's wrong i met newt when when i first began learning how to campaign they had the campaign school back in those days i don't know um but he said hey i noticed what you did on that letter that's a great thing as there are a few of us that are get together talking about it we're going to change western civilization you know and uh some people hear that that phrase or that term they think that you know that's though that's what we were engaged in changing western civilization saving it for freedom um and and i was invited to join the group and i haven't regretted that at all no no it's a great story uh and i think in your first term you were placed right on the budget committee or it was at the or that was your assignment right and you write in the book uh tell this story i just loved it uh you know you start to get educated and you start attending these briefings with weinberger and others and they start talking about planes you can't even see right tell us about that yeah you're right so here i am a brand new member of the congress and i mean listen if you've never been involved in politics before and spent almost no time in washington you have these images about what's going on up there and you know you you think after you see some of the legislation you wonder what are these people thinking i mean this is crazy anyway so i i own the budget i'm on the budget committee and the budget committee uh the one of the first hearings we have is with the secretary of defense uh cap y murder and so before the that uh hearing would take place the the morning of that hearing he invites the the committee out to the pentagon has a breakfast he talks to everybody and i'm sitting there as a new member and i'm i'm listening to these guys talking about this this plane that they couldn't see i'm thinking to myself oh you know i was right these people are nuts i mean flames you can't see the cruise missiles that you couldn't see and i'm thinking boy this is really and it but then as the discussion went on you know it started to make a little sense to me and then i put two or three together that it was it was the early days of the of the stealth fighter but it was it was it was one of those fun experiences that to go through that sure sure uh now tell us about the very first time you met president reagan uh i i bet you was a typical kind of photo op um that's usually how a freshman member would get to see the president but is that the case and did you spend 30 seconds with him or 10 minutes how how how was tell us about that yeah you're right it was a typical situation i mean uh the party uh uh knows how helpful being seen with the president for a candidate is um so i had just i guess i could just yeah i would have won the runoff election so i was now the republican nominee for the congressional seat invited to washington to meet with the president and of course but it was a very a very simple thing you know you you you're lined up with the other guys in the same position and uh you you have a staged area in which you go up you shake hands with the president a few a few lines back and forth and you know off you go but for for a a novice in politics uh to find himself standing in the white house uh with the president of the united states uh it's a you know it's just an incredible experience um and obviously many other opportunities over the years but that was the first one and you always remember that and i was looking around my room to see whether i actually had it had that picture here but it's it's indelibly marked in my brain sure so you're in the house for the remainder of the reagan presidency from 82 through 88 tell us about ronald reagan um you you got to spend more time with him and you certainly were on the front lines in the reagan revolution fighting for what he believed in but uh just for our audience here here i have right with me today somebody that got into congress thinking about ronald reagan and served alongside him tell us about him well you know he was he was a larger than life figure i mean yeah i mean this is this is a person that when i was with him i just uh i just so admired the man i mean i mean really uh it's it's it's hard to say how impressed uh impressive uh that uh that he was it his his ability to engage you immediately drew you in uh he had a personality that was just it was wonderful but um he he always made you feel so comfortable being in his presence um of course he you know he he every everything he believed it seemed like i believed i mean it was just one of those things that just absolutely uh matched whether it was economic policy whether it was foreign policy which as you know uh during the reagan years was an extremely difficult period of time the amex missile the b1 bomber uh you know the the intermediate range missiles in europe the riots around the world uh it was not easy to stand up and and and say i am for ronald reagan except we had ronald reagan who could communicate with the american people uh in such a straightforward way make things so understandable that in the end we won but it was a very very very very difficult fight i remember the debate about the quote nuclear free issue back in those days i think we lost the vote on the floor of the house i think it was probably a resolution as opposed to any specific piece of legislation but we really won the debate around the country i mean it really it after that just that whole issue just kind of fell away so you know president reagan was was a an incredible leader to see him represent america overseas i mean it just was it was regal i mean i guess that's a word that almost comes to my mind he's regal um this person is a quick story yeah uh so priscilla and i are flying down to he's doing an event for me in in in 88 for the senate race uh and uh we're told how to where we're supposed to stand when we get you know as we're waiting to get off the plane you know that they tell us the president will go out first you know then congressman you'll go out and your wife will come out after you we're waiting there the resident the president comes out of his cabin starts engaging conversation with us and and says to priscilla now after you priscilla and priscilla being priscilla she said uh mr president uh i can't do that but your folks said that you're supposed to go out first and president says looks at her and says now you know priscilla i'm president of the united states and i can do anything i want so you're gonna go out first i mean he was just he was just a very very special man but yeah you know uh his he was he was committed to his ideas and that's what you know that's what that's what made following him so easy sure sure well you know it works both ways too you were i just no doubt that president reagan admired you um so much so that uh you know you talk about when he came down to florida in support of your sent your first senate run um he in doing so he somewhat violated the you know republican principles in the sense of uh he he selected he looked at you and said i want that guy in the primary and and endorsed you which was a rare moment right yeah yeah that's right because there was still we were still involved in a primary uh and so it was it was a big deal even though it was kind of downplayed i mean i mean down played in the sense of the the the press was trying to figure all of this out uh but there was no question about he didn't downplay he was there to support my candidacy for for the senate uh and a story about that uh i remember i was asked uh you know white house preached out to my office and said you know would the congressman like to introduce president reagan and i said i'd love to one condition i write what i'm going to say i don't have to you know you guys aren't going to write it i'm going to write it and it was one of those you know one of those little short moments of of a speech or a speaking moment but it's one of those that touched my heart deeply introducing him and i told him about his story when i was in in france and uh i did a little town meeting in one of the little countries i mean communities outside of paris let's say um an agriculture community and at the end of this little back and forth where i was answering questions from the french audience i asked my host if it would be all right if i were to ask a question uh of them and what i said was tell me what you think of america now this is 1985 probably and you get a lot of different answers but then one fella stood up uh probably in his 80s um with a cane to kind of stabilize himself and he looked at me and he said you tell the people in america you tell them we will never forget that it was the american gi that liberated our little town tell them we will never forget and i used that little uh story to tell the president so mr president we want you to know we will never forget that you are the person who led america back to greatness that you rebuilt our military you rebuilt our economy you reduced inflation you got the economy going again you created jobs we will never forget and he looked at me afterwards and he kind of took me by the shoulders and he said who's here to help who anyway it was a wonderful time with him wonderful time yeah i what a moment um okay so you you spoke about what you wrote to uh introduce the president uh one of the advantages i have in this conversation is we literally i sitting right now on top of 66 million documents from the reagan administration and in it i found the remarks that ronald reagan wrote in support of connie mack you can count on connie mack to defend freedom to defend america to defend the taxpayer and to defend the family he supports the strategic defense initiative that would protect us from nuclear attack and he supports tough federal judges who would put violent criminals behind bars and to protect our children from menace of illegal drugs he favors the toughest most comprehensive drug enforcement policies yes conniemec cares about people that must have been pretty special to to hear the president united states say that yeah well it's special to hear it again i mean uh yeah i mean he meant everything to me he really did one other point about president reagan that first senate race was tight it was touch and go day after election a few days after election very small margin and i think your campaign thinking mathematically you'd want it but also feeling like we had better get out there and state very definitively that you did win it in order to ensure there was momentum and and um and i didn't realize this i actually i knew it i forgot it but ronald reagan uh called in uh to your press conference um and tell us about that story because it's really important well i mean you you've outlined it pretty well i mean the uh i went to bed on tuesday night wednesday morning 2 30 25 000 votes behind actually thought we had lost the race um three hours later after tossing and turning you know i i saw that oh this thing is narrowed down to 5000 or so absentee ballots we could win this and sure enough by the end of the day mitch bainwald a friend of yours mitch was uh my campaign chairman at the time and he you know mr done all his calculations and sure enough he said he said connie you're going to win this race by 38 000 votes or something 34 000 votes right and i said mitch you're out of your mind you know it's not going to that's that's exactly basically what we won by so um but it took eight days so so here you've got um the day after the election uh it's now starting to look like we've won the absentee ballots have come in we're ahead by quite 30 000 votes but we're being challenged by uh by my opponent um and like you said what we wanted to do is to hold this press conference and basically say i declare victory and while it's still being debated in the press and all that kind of stuff but we declare victory and president reagan was gracious enough to call in to that press conference we had president reagan on the speaker and he just called to congratulate said connie congratulations on this great victory it was important for you to win the state of florida and so forth so i mean it really validated i mean that that was the point he really validated the point of view that i had won the election even though it hadn't you know been finalized yet and it and it makes all the difference in the world to get to that position as opposed to fighting to get back get to it yeah it was a wonderful moment oh yeah now you mentioned um arthur finkelstein previous to this but you also just mentioned uh just such a terrific fellow mitch bainwald who i know was your campaign campaign chairman chief of staff guys like mitch are really special people that really drive the success for the connie max of the world right i mean um mitch is one of the smartest guys that i've known um and we hired mitch uh in when i was in the house side to do budget work he was working at the office of management budget i think he was in his mid to late 20s at the time um looked very young and you kind of wondered yourself come on does he really have all but i mean really really bright bright young man he went to florida to set up a foundation for me that we did some work in around the state then became the campaign manager then became my chief of staff and of course he and arthur finkelstein had this incredibly close relationship uh and i really got to the point where i mean i looked to arthur and to mitch and mitch more on a day-to-day basis i had to have the confidence in mitch that he knew what he was doing and uh it was a tough tough tough race um but the team pulled it off and and and yeah mitch was this is is an important part of my life and and i feel blessed to have had him as part of my team mark mills was another guy that was a terrific player in that campaign yeah um well don't forget the candidate had to be a little bit involved in the success as well so well that's that's true but it takes a team it really does it really does uh you know i uh let's i'd like to talk about uh arthur finkelstein for just a minute or two because uh how important of a role he played in your political career or your life uh and i i first i have to just say as a as a devotee as a fan as a a really an enormous admirer of arthur uh i thank you for choosing to thank him and speak about him in the very last words of your book i just to close out the book with a memory and a mention of him i'm sure is very special to all those that worked for you in your career and who knew arthur and worked with him in one way shape or form tell us about arthur well let's first of all kind of start at the end in the sense that arthur became almost a part of our family i mean we developed such a close relationship and as you know my son connie was in the congress for i think eight years and uh arthur was connie's political consultant as well and connie and arthur became dear dear friends so there's there's a great loving relationship about arthur finkelstein my family um so uh uh how did arthur arthur got to us really kind of serendipity i mean we had a list of of holsters back in 1982 to take a look at and the second or third call was to arthur and arthur uh said well i'm i'm i'm not employed by anybody in that race now and so in essence said the first person that offers me a job i'm taken and so we said but there was another little element to it is that arthur was a huge baseball fan yeah and and so the name connie mac meant something to it and he was intrigued by that um and so that's how the relationship got started um so he he he provided the polling and the advice during the first uh that first campaign in 82. uh in 84 i didn't have anybody running against me and and uh my aaa at the time brought a new person in from as a political consultant and frankly things you know it's pretty hard to lose a race when you don't have anybody running against you but we we did it pretty poorly we lost we lost some credibility in the way we handled that um and so then arthur arthur's back on the team and uh you know there's no question in my mind john that that i would not have won the senate race in fact i could go back maybe even to 80 the 82 race and i'll mention in a minute i i could not have won the race for the senate in 1988 without arthur's help and um the help you know people think of pollsters is the guy that look at numbers and you know they tell you this and they tell you that parker's real strength was his understanding of what what's behind those numbers yeah what do those numbers mean how do they interact how do those how do those groups of people in this pot over here with these numbers relate to these people over here i mean he and he he had such an understanding of human nature i mean he just knew how people were going to respond to stuff uh and he understood the press he understood how they would react and certain things so he he was invaluable and you're right he did an amazing amazing job i'm i'm thinking i'll be careful about this but i'm thinking about see if i can't find a way to have someone write a book about arthur because i think one of the things that the left does real well they really lionize their people we have a tendency to kind of take everything for granted you know you move on to your next thing in life arthur is one of those unique individuals that came along that really understood american politics he understood the press he understood human relations just a wonderful wonderful guy so i mean we can we can develop a couple of those stories as to why i've said those things if you'd like to but well i i just just know when you uh when you make your next project uh writing getting a terrific book written about him you let me know how i can help because i'll add a few paragraphs just a genius and an incredible human being okay so last point about arthur before we move on um kind of ironic and tragic was it not that for us all to learn i don't know over a couple of years ago that cancer ends up taking arthur finkelstein from us right what a i bet you you took that particularly hard yeah yeah absolutely i mean uh as i've already explained the relationship that we had and then for cancer to be the issue and uh uh it just i i i don't think there's there's several times uh a week i will think about arthur and say i wish i could just pick up the phone and call him and get it get his insight but as a dear friend uh you know we we were just brokenhearted about it uh not just me but priscilla and kylie and the whole family it was just a terrible terrible loss and of course he did he died like he did everything else he he died a a man very comfortable with who he is and who he was and uh he reached out to everybody closed the doors on lots of things uh made us all feel comfortable he took the initiative to do that um and so what they made a very very special uh special point uh about him just uh a great great person yeah yeah yeah we're all better off as a result of knowing him so um in florida and in those days we had primaries and if you didn't win the primaries by 50 plus one we had runoff elections i won my primary no problem the democrats had a whole bunch of people in their primary it came down to two people buddy mckay and bill gunter bill gunter was absolutely everybody was convinced bill gunter was going to be the person who's going to be the nominee and he's going to win this race uh arthur does a poll the day after their um their pr their primary and and he comes back to me and he says connie he said let me two things two things came out of this poll one is mckay's gonna win not gunner and mckay's going to come out of there with a huge momentum and with that momentum nobody knows who he is that and that or said a different way liberals thought he was liberal moderate saudi was moderate conservatives thought he was conservative perfect position you know he's in he says the only way we can win this raid you've got to get involved in their runoff election of course my reaction wait a minute what do you mean get involved in there no no he said no no no here's the way we would do it so he came up with this um he came up with this commercial uh and as as you know but the the the kind of the tag was hey buddy you're liberal and the episode the race came down to i was an ideological wacko he was he was an extreme liberal um so we we we he created this ad it was 10 seconds long it said buddy mckay is has raised your taxes um six times and now he wants to raise his pay hey buddy you're liberal and that's all it was and and we ran it in in a couple of markets up in north florida and i went over to tallahassee at a press conference and introduced this uh to the press and they just went crazy about it what are you doing what are you doing i mean why why are you attacking mckay and i said well we'll get to we'll get to gunther later but you know i just want to make it clear about what and what arthur was really saying is once their uh runoff election is over there's only 30 days left in the campaign and 30 days was not enough you got to you got to you're going to have to tell people who you think this he is and um we have to get started now and of course we did that and that's what i meant earlier if we hadn't done that uh it was over it was over yeah yeah i mean some really unconventional but genius thinking right i just uh and you were smart enough to fall away and courageous enough to follow it you know zig ziglar had a term for that intelligent ignorance you knew enough to know you didn't know you better pay attention to somebody who does yeah sure sure okay if we had 50 hours we could cover your successful uh two terms in the senate your senate career but we don't but i i do want to uh mention one thing and just have you talk to us about it i don't know maybe a lot of people don't know this but um you had served to because of your outstanding career your persona your success in florida the fact that you represented the state of florida you um were asked not just to be on a short list for george bush 43's vice president but to be his vice presidential uh candidate and yet you turned it down just amazing that that's got to be a one in 10 million type of a story tell me why um well uh so it's kind of a long story i mean uh the first came from from dick cheney of asking me to to i guess probably at that time it was to be on the list and i i said you know i really don't want to do it and there are multiple conversations that that took place which led to the point that you were making the last of which was in a fundraiser up in orlando and i'm face to face with george w and you know he does that standard where he takes you by the shoulders and says honey you know i want you blah blah blah blah you know and i said i'm not going to do it and he said well you're one tough sob uh yeah anyway so that's so that's how that's how we got to that so why did i not do it in in in 1970 gosh it seems like it seems like now we're talking about you know centuries ago 1970s no 1996 yeah uh 1996 um senator dole had put me on uh his short list and it got down to uh where it was either me or um jack kemp and you know jack and i are dear friends and and uh he was great to serve with but anyway so it's the two of us and and bob i had a couple of other conversations with him because naturally we've seen each other day in and day out on the on the senate floor and all the work that we're doing um he says now there's one thing he said i will call you at some point and ask you definitively if i were to ask you uh to run would you do it and so that we kind of left that and sure enough you know a week or two or whatever later uh he called and i had to say yes i'll do it or no i won't and and i will tell you john i was terrified about doing it i mean i really was it just to me it just seemed like oh it's just beyond your capabilities blah blah blah but i said i said yes i will do this and so i told bob that and fortunately he made the decision to pick jack kemp and not me uh but but what i think what happened having gone through that experience of really having to decide because what if you if you say yes to running as vice president you have to have in your mind that one day you're going to have a chance to run for president and so i thought all that through and the conclusion i came to was that's just not for me i mean i'm not one of these guys that got into politics thinking that i'm doing this because i want to be president of the united states you know a lot of the guys end up in washington and men and women these days who end up in washington to believe that they are going to be president of the united states someday i was never there and um so before george w reached out to me there were a lot of i mean a lot of there was a couple years uh uh go by and i at that point have made the decision that i am retiring from politics that i'm not going to run for re-election in 2000. so i already had gone through the the the mental process of making that decision deciding um it's time for me to step out and go do something else with my life and that and and i stuck with that i mean and i think i really think that's the right decision but i will tell you uh having gone through the writing of the book and the interviews and the very you know conversations i've gotten into with people you know you kind of think well you know maybe i should but but no i am i'm very comfortable i made the right decision yeah um you know you know i say this jokingly but you know yeah maybe in some respects it was a smart decision because you would have had to have gone up against barack obama when you were i mean i thought about that too and when arsenal and i would tell you back to arthur as soon as our as soon as arthur saw the momentum uh building for obama he months and months before the the democrat primary he said it's all over this guy's going to be the nominee and he's going to win yeah yeah talk to me about how politics has changed if you feel it has since your time in the senate and where we sit today yeah well you know um i guess there's a couple of different answers to that uh yes it's really changed and uh no it really hasn't and what i mean by that is human nature is human nature and the way we treat each other the way we react to each other is fundamental basic human nature and if you go back through history um i mean hamilton got shot by aaron burr uh you know that that's pretty that's pretty ruthless politics um but but but you know so politics has always been uh this very confrontational um uh process um so that element is still still part of it okay there may be some modifications to that and there's there's an ebb and flow to how things work but the reality is that human nature is human nature and that that's at play the the other thing so that's why i can say no it really hasn't changed but yes it really has changed in the sense that the technologies that are available to campaign these days and and what all those technologies uh really engulf people they you live in a bubble that's created by these technologies who are very cleverly manipulating what you're thinking what you're seeing what you're hearing you know we spend all this effort and time trying to make sure the russians aren't coming but the reality is we have our own internal organizations both political and um and corporate that are engaged in manipulating people's uh thinking and so uh there's a there's a uh on netflix it's called the social dilemma if you haven't seen it i really would encourage you and everybody else to see it because it gives you an insight about how this manipulation takes place and it's important in a free society that we get a handle on how this is working because the biggest concern i have now john is people don't know what they don't know whether the information that they've got and they're acting on is true i mean there's just it's it you just it's a it's a terrible thing and that's that's part of what is causing uh this this is this conflict this uh confrontation is taking place it's real and i think it's as a result of the technology yeah and and meanwhile um you still entitled um subtitle your book uh politics an honorable profession a real calling i don't know the reason that i say that is because um it's only an honorable profession depending on how the politician lives the life of a politician it is an honorable calling but uh some don't do as well as others in holding up that end of the anyway excuse me yeah yeah no thank you for correcting me i i was looking at your book now that yeah calling and and uh that is what it was for you a a calling a friend of mine asked me i said what what's the what's the title of the book again and i you know i said citizen mack uh politics and honorable calling and he looked at me without batting an eye and he said oh it's a it's a it's a novel huh a fiction that's great that's great well would you somebody in their mid-20s who's thinking about getting into it like you did in this day and age would you uh advise them to to get into politics absolutely absolutely i would i'm i'm i'm still optimistic about the future of america uh i'm optimistic about uh uh our values of freedom and uh you know it it's just important that younger people get involved uh in in the election process and a lot of people will say to me well how you know we're gonna we're gonna have a hard time finding candidates uh and i i don't i don't know that there's ever been a time in which there weren't a lot of candidates for office uh so the answer is good people uh with the proper motivations need to get involved in politics they can make a difference um it's tough but absolutely and i and and i guess when they ask me that question they kind of say to me oh no they're not going to do it why or what's the motivation it's a very simple thing and i remember in in the in the speech i put together back for the 1982 campaign there was a line in there that said something like i believe in and i love my country now that might sound like a you know oh come on i mean that's a little fruity isn't it i mean i believe in and love my country 1982 don't forget very tough times patriotically i mean you were kind of looked at as but but but that's but that really was the point is the point was i i do believe in and i do love my country it was it's that sense of responsibility duty whatever one wants to call it that you that i got involved and that other people get involved too so if you have if you have the calling let's just make sure that the calling is the right thing that you're there for the right reasons to help other people uh and to protect our country uh in the future yeah what a great way to end a a great conversation with a an absolutely great guy uh you are uh one of my heroes uh senator and i know many many or millions of others who feel the very same way so to have you write a memoir to put all this down in one place it's a special thing and i i can't thank you enough for for writing it and for all the contributions you've made to this country over the years and so it really has been wonderful to see you and talk to you well john thank you so much it's really great that uh that we've done this and i i i i admire you for the position that you're in i mean it's got to be it's got to be like dying and going to heaven i mean you know uh to be working in an organization uh that is there to foster the ideas uh of a man we both love so much ronald reagan it's got to be very special and you've done a great job there very proud of you and i appreciate this opportunity so much great thank you so much senator great to be with you today all right thank you thank you for joining us for today's virtual programming event we hope this conversation has inspired you to share what you've learned with your family and friends and that you'll join us again for an upcoming event let me offer lesson number one about america all great change in america begins at the dinner table so tomorrow night in the kitchen i hope the talking begins and children if your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be an american let them know and nail him on it that would be a very american thing to [Music] do [Music] you