based on my wife's recommendation. we read fiveyears ago . >> book tv wants to know what you're reading. send us your summer reading list on twitter, instagram or facebook. book tv on c-span2: television for serious readers. >> thank you for coming. my name is mark bonanza and i'm the author of this book. >> .. but there is much more. he is clearly bound to this

presidential politics that is the new hampshire primary. back in 2003, the national media finally figured this out with a story written from the "washington post", and as they sit after that sort of all help broke loose. so every four years in the presidential cycle, a story of lou's coveted endorsement in the first primary in our nation is cycled literally all over the world. lou is most of you or some of you may know is the longest-serving member or senator in new hampshire, in the state senate. he has a long almost four decades history in new hampshire politics, and a fast dating history to say the least. each year when that presidential cycle rolls around, in the news trucks pull in the town and the candidates lined up and doors get knocked on and restaurants get visited and diners get

visited, lou is in the middle of all of it. and with good reason. winning that new hampshire primary of course is very important. i think lou will tell you when he gets appear that they are already calling. 2020 is already looming and is going to be quite an election season as things progress. but there is more to the story,, and the rest of the story is really a very fast dating career, both athletics as a participant himself, as a coach, as a consultant, the teams internationally, as an educator, the president of the college. he's really as a businessperson he is an all-around type of guy or literal renaissance man before the term became one in vogue. i had the great pleasure of meeting him through some work i did for other biographies,

notably to boston celtics legends, jojo white and sam jones. through his work in basketball, lou became acquainted with him a number of boston celtics, most notably sanders and sam and that's i've met lou and had not on the honor of writing this book but really a great honor of being his friend. what i have learned about in beyond the obvious as i researched this book, , as i interviewed him and others, is that this is the sort of venue is the epitome of relationship politics. it's about looking somewhat in the eye and shaking their hand and making a true bond, a connection. you obviously can't become president of the united states by shaking everybody's hand in the electorate. but what you can do is when you are genuine about it and you look someone in the eye and you reach across and you listen to their concern, and your eye meets their eyes and in no that they are being met by a genuine

person, your heart develops the kind of caring over and over through this political process and that's what's happened with lou through those four years, is his become that person that not only people can trust, but that he himself has been sort of changed by the process. i, the first time a interviewed him i won't forget because we're sitting at his kitchen table, and there were phone calls and error messages and other people knocking on the door. the work really doesn't ever end. he was as attentive as he could be to each and every constituent that called or visited, and i got a really clear indoctrination to lou d'allesandro pretty quickly. i remember looking at his refrigerator and it being adored with photographs of another number of national politicians who had come calling. it's just an amazing connection to the national stage.

one of the things that really as an attorney that really impacted me was we can all remember back to the election of 2000 and what was in essence a constitutional crisis in the nation, and when gore v. bush was finally decided in december of that year, within weeks of that lou had a sitdown david sudo who wrote an interesting dissenting opinion in that case as well as al gore and tipper gore themselves, only a short time after that, and to think about this man from new hampshire being in that sort of place in that intersection and national politics is really quite an amazing thing. but as this it really the story of lou d'allesandro is his development as a young boy and sort of carrying forward the ideals of the mother who really cared about the people around her who left us far too young, and sort of, you know, i know

one of the most emotional things we talked about in the research of this book was him reflecting back on what she would think after all these years of what he has accomplished in his life. so without any further ado, and i would like to introduce my dear friend and the subject of the book, lou d'allesandro. [applause] >> thank you, mark. it's always tough to live up to introductions, but let me tell you the course of one's life, there are a couple of things you want to do. either one, own a restaurant, or you want to write a book. [laughing] i knew how bad it was to own a restaurant, having been involved with a lot of people who owned restaurants. but i thought about writing a book for a long, long period of time, long period of time. so it all started in this

fashion. sam jones called my office and sonja, who is my signature, did no sam jones was. who was sam jones calling you? i said, sampley for the celtics and we were good friends, and he wanted to tell me that he had written a book. he was going to have a book signing at the boston garden. so i called such and i said let's go to the gain because sam jones has got a book and we can see him and talk about it. sam and i gone to brazil together for the alliance for progress and within clinics in brazil. so we go to the gain, and mark is with sam, and we start talking and i say, you know, mark, i was thinking of writing a book and need someone to work with you to help you.

so what do you think? i i called a couple of friends f mine who knew mark, one was a guy named frank novak, frank was a professional football coach. frank coach for the oilers and the green bay packers, and his head coach at northern michigan university in my coaching days, he had fixed up games for me for basketball team moving out to the midwest. so frank newmark because they were both from massachusetts and had high praise for mark swank h morgan i sit mark, i'd like to write a book, and would you help? would you be the person who puts this stuff down on paper and make sense of it? that's how it all started. and we would meet at the dunkin' donuts restaurant -- can you believe that? and we met saturday mornings or

sunday mornings at 9:00, and we would talk and we would talk through a chapter. and mark would write it up, send it to us, and pat and i would go over it. and send it back, and that was the beginning, that was the beginning. so for about two years we would become as i said, either friday or saturday morning, and there was an elderly lady who sat in the corner and she probably thought what the hell are these guys doing here at the dunkin' donuts every saturday morning? and so i finally told her, we are writing a book. she believed it. so kind of went on and on and on, and we finally got it done. the initial part of the book iss you'll see when you are reading it, talk about my early life and how things went on.

and how athletics plays a very significant role in my life. it was a real aggression outlet. it was the chance to do things physically that i'd like to do, and i have brothers who were very much involved in athletics. i had an older brother who was just an outstanding player. my younger brother was a great player, and by other younger brother. so athletics provided a conduit really for us to move forward. as marx and we lost our mother when she was a very young woman. my mother was only 32 when she passed away and she left four voice, and how were those boys going to be taken care of? we went through a process in terms of writing this book of what happened to us as we moved along this path of life. it called for many changes and different directions. that's why i say athletics played such a vital role.

was involved as a football player, a basketball player and a baseball player, so our time was occupied all the time because we didn't really have a great home life because there wasn't much going on there. so athletics played this significant role. and as we went on we got better, you know, willie, you'll understand that. with good coaches and we got better. we didn't have all the magic they have today of the training and so forth and so on, but what we did have was just a desire to play. that carried us a long way. as i said, my brother, my older brother was a tremendous athlete and he was a great inspiration to all of us. he used to beat us up, to be honest with you. [laughing] and whack flaccus around a lit, and i think he understood what it was all about. the athletics carries me through

high school, and i get some awards as a senior in high school. i had become an old new england player and i get offers to go to college. here's the most honorable, the greatest thing since sliced bread. jamie, welcome. thank you, thank you. we are blessed with the mayor of buffoon. listen, we have a lot of celebrities you. next thing, will have police raid. [laughing] anyway, i get a scholarship to college and a guy named john, a wonderful man was a coach of nuke football giants when they played in the magic and against the baltimore colts. that extra made for fashion

football. that television game with the nfl, brought it to a whole new level. he was the lines coach of the giants at the time. he thought enough of me to recommend it to a number of colleges and he recommend me to the university of colorado. so they came. they flew me out. i visited the school, so one is so forth and they offered me an athletic scholarship. so i end up going to colorado. when i was there i played with some great players. i played with boyd daughter who is a superstar in the nfl for the green bay packers, john wooden was really outstanding player for the cleveland browns and an all-pro, became general manager of the eagles, frank clark who played for the dallas cowboys. so i played with some wonderful players, and they, i think may be a better player, as it usually happens. welcome, mayor, and the most distinguished chairman of the board, danny o'neil. if you don't say hello to danny

o'neil you're in trouble. [laughing] there are so many o'neills in this town, but welcome. i'm there and i get to play in what was then the big eight conference, and my great thrill out there was, i parked cars for the oklahoma colorado game when the oklahoma people came in by helicopter, and they landed in the field. you know, it was like parked my helicopter. [laughing] how do you part a helicopter? they had the greatest, one of the greatest collegiate teams of it. they had tommy mcdonald, jerry tubbs, all all americans, all great players who had distinguished professional careers. took my exams at the end of the first semester and said, you know, it's a long way from home, i don't get to see my friends, i

don't get similar brothers. so i decided to leave and then hung around for a while and sort of languished, thinking about college and so forth and so on. my dad wasn't too happy obviously. it was the situation where nobody had to pay and then somebody would have to pay for the second choice. [laughing] so i settled on the university of new hampshire. i went to the university and i paid my own way. and i worked, in those days i was working nights. i was a lead out what we had ten races, lots and lots of people and they got an extra 100 bucks by being the person who weighed the dogs in for the race. i worked days from the father was in plumbing and heating business. i worked nights at wonderland. i went to the university of new hampshire. got my first big job at unh

washing dishes in the comments. so i got 60 cents an hour, and the head of the workers at the time was one of the cashiers from dover, and mr. cash was a subway notre dame alumni. used to have that little book with all the alumnus, but he had the book so he knew everybody. so at $.60 and now he told the 110, i made more money in one month than anybody ever made, which was kind of interesting, you know? how many hours did i put in? but the great part of that was met the beautiful and talented patricia at the time. she would come through the line and i would serve. how about that? i was the server. so i took care of her and another great learning

experience there, and my wife will remember this, i don't know if we put this in the book or not, one guy came in one day and he was from manchester, right, pat? and he made a a comment about e of the ladies behind the line. so i got kind of infuriated and i jumped over the counter and i went after a guy, and i was going to kill them, not really. [laughing] but you know, i was really so mad because he insulted this woman about her size. and my mother was a big lady, so that was a sensitive point. so after that all the kitchen people love to me. [laughing] i was going to be the protector of everybody who worked in the comments. so that lasted for a semester, and in those days i was living in these magnificent quarters on

campus called east west hall. east west hall was built in world war i, and they were wooden barracks. it cost you 100 $150 a semester a room. and my board was 155 but i made it back because of the money i made. so is a pretty good situation. and i started practicing with the football team and i did pretty good so they've been allowed me to eat at the training table so i could give up my job at, because it really didn't have to make the money because my meals were taken care of. just going on about my career there, , i had a great career at unh. i loved every minute of it. pat and i started going out when will freshmen, and that was it, we got married when i was a senior and things have been pretty good ever since. who knew where your career was

going? i thought two things. number one, i thought i was going to be a marine after graduation but i had a very serious knee injury after my senior year. actually i was playing lacrosse and my brother paul crippled me, to be honest with you. and that's the gods honest truth. how many unh people here? we walked into dave longs history class, mr. long, did you have in? the american story. she's too young. she's a baby. she's a baby. [laughing] so we walked into dave longs american story and he says here comes one of the brothers of the cain and abel story. oh, boy. [laughing] it cut around my brother crippled me -- got around -- that lake injury required some surgery at the end of my senior year, so rather than going into the marines which i spent time

in the core when i was a sophomore, i was put in a reserve unit here in manchester advising that reserve unit, they let me go in the late 1960s and they got my great story but that is i was teaching at bradley, and the marines came to the door and they said to my brother adrian who was a principal, we want d'allesandro now work and adrian says, there's no substitute. we don't have any substitute. we're a catholic school. we don't have any reserved. so they allowed me to stay teaching until the school year ended and then abruptly to camp lejeune and i went through advanced training, and that was the end of that story. so my life carries on, education becomes good. coaching is great. i had great players, really great players. i have bradley and then i get this job at hampshire college,

coaching basketball. they had a minor-league basketball team and it didn't win a game, and they hired me to make, there was a turnaround, a big turnaround. so my year coaching we ended up i think 12 and 12 or 14 and 14 and a great bunch of ragtag guys. of course the scholarships. we were a new hampshire college of accounting and commerce, 80 hanover street up on the second floor and, hey, that's all she wrote. the only significant memory is chevys donors because chevys domiciles across the street and the kids would cost and stop all the traffic, and the police chief who was down the street in the old station had to come out to the front of the station and started running the crosswalk. traffic, get the kids coming and going. that's how he got famous there.

i was there for quite a period of time and i taught western civilization and coached basketball, became athletic director and a think we start an athletic program. that's pretty successful day because southern new hampshire university is a big, big deal. i had a really critical decision to make after i was there for, well, about 14 years with a college in the southern part of the state looking for chief executive officer, and i was asked to join the executive team there. what i did know was that they denniston said the place should go bankrupt. nobody told me that so i take the job in the first thing i find out is we don't have any money. [laughing] that's interesting. so we didn't have any money, we didn't have any students.

so we had to get students we had to get money. my first basketball team, leone, bigelow, ended up in -- donnie comes down and he had done the accounting and we were doing accounting on an accrual basis at that time. so you know what that meant, land, buildings and so forth are all part of the mix. no money but part of the numbers. so if you look at the accrual, we had lots of money. of course no cash that we had property that had value. so donnie would work a sheet for me and the sheet sheep would s, 60, 90, 120 days. that's how we paid our bills. who did we have to pay in 30, who would wait 60, who would wait 90 and who could we hold to 120? so got a great bunch of people to work with me and we turned the place around. we turned it from a negative to

the point in four years we had a positive. in four years we ended up with a $2 million surplus and what we did is we bought 50 acres of the best land in nashua and we use that as our endowment. so foolishly as my daughter christina would say, you left that job where you were making more money than i ever made before, and i decided to run for governor. that's in the book and you will hear all about that. the second run for governor was really the critical one. i lost by 2000 votes, and i say the good thing is i lost because the best thing was, by losing, my wife didn't divorce me. because julia would've cause consternation in the d'allesandro house. while all of this was happening i became involved in politics, and in our book we tell the story of my beating john kennedy. and i think it was a moment in

time that i will never forget. i was a junior at the university. john kennedy came, and the story, i can't tell you, you can read the story and how i met john kennedy, but made a lasting impression on me. i've got the picture of him speaking at unh. it's in my office. so i started politics. i run for the house of representatives. i do okay at the house of representatives. i win. at the same time i'd been run for the constitutional convention and a win, and at the same time ira for the executive council. so i i had a little streak goi. in 1974 i was on, i was a member of the house and i won the constitutional convention and it won the executive council. i was on the executive council for credit time and decide to run for governor, ingenuity, i've just given you an iteration about governor. then my life hit a real downswing and i was out the politics for a while, and came

back to be a member of the local school board. i i suffered through that for tn years. [laughing] i got to tell you this, mayor. mayor and mayor, nothing, nothing you do, and you served on the school boards, nothing you do in life is harder than school board. nothing in life, i'm telling you. it was really, really, really something, and at that time the mayor really didn't like me so he came and he was the chairman of the board and he came to the meetings. he had never done it before i was a very, but once i got very he came to the meetings. thought i i would revolutionize the school. anyway, so my life goes on. i finally i think it, i come back to the house. the senate seat opens up and i some losses in between. senate seat opens up and i went the senate. been in the senate for the last 20 years. my experience in politics,

presidential politics begins with gerald ford who i really liked who was a really good guy, football player at michigan. and what's the story? he played without a helmet. i can't believe that, but a really, really, really good guy and psychotic case of presidential politics and that's continued really for the last 20 plus years. so here we are. we put this book together, mark did a great job. couldn't have done it without them, without pat, you know, reading it, rereading it and trying to create something that was meaningful and had meaning and was an experience that i hope people enjoy reading. life is pretty short the way you look at it, and, indeed, the thing you want to leave as a legacy that's meaningful, and you've done something positive. so at this point in time i'm working on that lexi and

hopefully we will make it. we're going to, i kind of like to finish up. we've got the book done. we read it, reread it and reread it. wonderful lady from exeter really came up with the title and came up with the picture. we went to a lot of pictures and finally found something that was good. we had to get anybody to sign off, you know, who's picture was in the book and whose name -- so sign off. so i do find discounts and you decide all. i do find this one and find that one. i had to find anybody and they all had to sign affidavits so that they wouldn't sue me, right? if i did something wrong. [laughing] so we finally got all of that done, got the book done and then here it is. here it is. that's kind of the life and times of lou d'allesandro as a relates to the book.

as they say in the book the greatest sorrow of my life is truly this, that my mother never get to see in every boys do anything. never get to see her boys do anything. and my older brother was extremely successful as an athlete and extremely successful as a businessman, but my mother never got to see any of that, any of that. never got to see anything of us. i was at saint lazard school. i was in the first grade at my brother paul was in the kindergarten and my brother henry really had just been born, so that's the greatest sorrow that i have is that you have these wonderful experiences, you are able to do some things, at the most important people in your life just never got a chance to see anything. i guess that's why they write books, right?

so you can share with other members of the family. so with that i'll answer any questions you might have, you know, about the book. first of all have to thank everybody for coming. i have i think an association with everybody in the room, and thank you so much for taking the time to be here because it's very important. life is all about relationships. if you don't have relationships you don't have life. we've got to keep it going. my friend jimmy who is, what, got to be thinking of boston, right? without brett there is no boston, , let's put it that way. [laughing] and jimmy who has been with me along the way, james, distinguished politician, great public servant, great state police officer, wonderful, wonderful guy. joyce who is the bare of manchester done a magnificent

job and continues to do that job as we move forward. danny who is the chairman. billy who played for me at bishop brad high school was a captain of my last the ultimate the high school and a couple of the guys. helen, who can ever forget? talk about a fixture in this community. muscles was a greatest thing since sliced bread. [laughing] no question. muscles used to the basketball with walter peterson, former governor. so all of you have a place in my heart. the beautiful june craig, can never forget june. when we were first married, one of our first adventures with louis, june, billy and his wife is going out to dinner. remember that, june? son of a gun, that's like a hundred years ago. [laughing] she is well preserved.

i'm old. [laughing] so thank all of you, and willie and marissa and pat, so wonderful to see you and each one of you has a place in my heart. rd who is taking makeup, just great guy works hard for everybody, great guy. a great friend of my friend, just a great association. i'm very pleased that that existed. and so many of your played a role in my life so thanks so much for coming and as i said, i'll try to address questions that you might have, and thanks for coming. thank the library people, thank c-span. i mean, how can you beat this? it's america, right? thank you, everybody. [applause]

>> somebody must have a question. go ahead. [inaudible] something that surprised you injure dunkin' donuts conversation? >> discovering that homes were exactly 30 minutes apart from the dunkin' donuts was a real -- that was a great -- this isn't a plug for dunkin' donuts but that coffee shop as well located. i knew the essentials, and one of the first things they gave it

was an article written by the atlantic. watched him sort of the lou d'allesandro and it's a great article and it gave me a real insight into who he was and, of course, i i knew a little bit about his position with respect to politics in new hampshire. i think, you know, really what he taught me, and i've been blessed. i had able to write jojo white biography as a making, sam jones biography, amazing people. of course lou d'allesandro and all of them brought forth to me the importance of giving back, about what it's about, where true contentment and values come from. when about this, when we put the title of the book together,

thoughts of presidential hopefuls, it wasn't you to point out how important his endorsement is in the process that starts in early, late 2019 and early 2020. it was about they can learn from him. when national politicians developed this genuineness, and as lou likes to call it, trust and likability which are the elements which make it all work, when they do that and when they can emulate what he does, they are going to connect with people. it really is that seem, how strong he brings that to politics, which with lou is not a dirty word. it's really, it's that caring that he really got from his mom. is what i believe, that he think is most amazing thing about my, getting to know my friend, lou d'allesandro.

anybody else? somebody else must have a question. >> any thoughts or stories -- [inaudible] >> that's always a great question. sure. as you rethink this process there are some really significant things that may be will come in another book or something like that. you always look over things and there something you forgot. there something you forgot, a particular incident at a particular time that you missed out on, and i think one of the things, i don't know if we got this in or not but i got her in a football game and dislocated my hip. i was on the ground with nobody around, and they took me, put me in the back of a pickup truck, took me to an emergency room and

reset my hip. and my brother was with me, and i think that, , i should've thought more about that and put it in because it was a very special situation and it just, i think emphasized the strength of the family in terms of us being close. on the one in the kills me at unh by knocking me out for the season but then in this particular situation he goes with me to this hospital. and when you're young, probably in the ninth grade at the time and you are taken to a place, a very strange place, you just don't know what's going on in somebody is there. that was a very unique experience. i wish i'd spent more time talking about that, but that was a very special situation. a couple presidential things that we didn't put down,

sometime in the future we will put down a particular incident in. i think one of them happened in the reelection campaign when gerald ford was running for reelection and he was challenged and the republican primary by ronald reagan, and stuart spencer was running the campaign and he was noted political, big time political all over the country. we were at a meeting and that we're going to lose the primary. really thought were going to lose the primary. and stuart spencer point something out that i'll never forget. he says, they have the celebrity, ronald reagan, but we have the president. we have the president. kind indicates the power of the presidency. because we ended up beating ronald reagan and ford won the nomination. he loses the election but

there's a real sense of politics and the power of the presidency. spencer knew that and he has been around a long, long, long period of time. and they did have the candidate. reagan was a very popular, very engaging guy. very engaging. as you would like ronald reagan, but at that point in time we had the president, so that's something that one of these days when i talk about political science, kind of focus in on that. jimmy. [inaudible] >> what happened? how was it you in massachusetts

and go to school there? why did you go all the way appear to go back there to work two jobs and pursue your education there? [laughing] >> i wasn't making enough money to worry about the income tax. [inaudible] >> always a great question from jimmy. look, i must say i was afflicted with the gambling bug when i was young. i got the job at wonderland and i really enjoyed dog racing. it was a good job. we were teamsters so we were paid well, and i like, i really like the environment. i became a minor player, a very minor play. i didn't really like fixing oil burners to be honest with you.

[laughing] and i didn't like calling around sellers in the north end rats coming after you to fix leaks and to fix frozen pipes. or i didn't, i would didn't like my father calling the and saying all over 100 gallons of oil for this person in the north and in roxbury. i wanted to watch a football game, i wanted to do something else. i really never caught the family business to be honest with you but i did like wonderland and they were very good to me. wasn't much of a career, leadoff boy, but i did enjoy. and, of course, i did get engaged with the girl in new hampshire at the time, and so coming back to new hampshire was probably the right thing to do. it was the right thing to do. [laughing]

[applause] >> so here yemen, you know, 57 years later, here here we are. and that's that, but my brother really loves the business. my brother paul, and it really took over the business when my father gave it up and really thrived in it. he thoroughly enjoyed it. >> someone else? >> when you left politicians for coaching -- [inaudible] >> great question. no, because george who was the dean left me totally out of the process. [laughing] so i had no say in you my successor would be. but pj came very well recommended and then went on to

become a a great nba coach as l as seton hall vicki went to wagner seton hall and the pros, but no, and actually at the time i had just spent some time away from the athletic department. i had, really have no say in who was chosen. he chose a group to choose my successor. but i must say pj was young, very energetic, had great new york connections which is what we needed because we needed recruits, we needed players. not that we running out of place because we have had not to flatter myself because i great players but we had great teams, we had great teams. and i think some of our teams would it be any of the teams in the broader error here. i became the average 101 points

per game over a 30 game schedule, and had some of the best athletes that ever attend the school. as you know, great coaches are made by great players like nothing to do with his selection. he was very, very successful. we had a gathering at new hampshire college and pj came back, soli came back, stanton was there and the four of us talk about coaching and what had transpired. migrate, it was when i was coaching and after college my wife washed uniforms. you know, we would bring them home after a game and they would go into our wash machine and she would wash them, fold them, dry them, send them back. that does not exist today. and we played games around the city. we had to find places to play. in the last part of my career we did build a gym at the new college so a lot of things were different, but i thought pj was

a really good choice because he gave come he provided linkage and sullivan who followed him brought in some outstanding players, some really outstanding players. >> walter peterson played a major role. what did you learn from his friendship? >> thanks for the question. walter peterson was probably, you know, one of the greatest man i ever knew. what did i learn? i learned that a should keep my mouth shut at times and listen, not speak up too quickly. that's number one. the next thing i learned from walter is there is something you should do in life, is always surround yourself with better people. walter always did that. he found the best people who could do the job, regardless of what others say. walter was smart enough to know.

he did know everything, and he got the people around him who were better at what they were doing and they helped him. i said walter peterson made the most significant decision in tax policy in this state when he convened sanders, create a commission to look at tax policy and changed the stock and trade tax to the business profits tax which allowed new hampshire to stay away from an income tax, stay way from the sales tax and be successful on the revenue side. as was said at walters funeral, i i probably will never forget this, walter peterson was only guy who could say to you, go to hell, and you anticipating the trip. [laughing] now, that's something. that's really something. he was just, he was truly a

great man, a great, great man. love the people. yet all of the things that make great politicians. he was very, very likable and very trustworthy. if walter gave you his work, he was going to deliver. i mean that very, very sincerely. the teen years i spent with walter peterson were among the best years of my academic life, and that was because the way walter handled situations. there were times when i wanted to make changes and i want to do things walter would say, relax, have patience will be able to do it but it will come along it, at a certain time at a certain place. the walter peterson, he's one-of-a-kind, no question. no question in my mind, one-of-a-kind.

>> did you ever endorse a a candidate later on in the campaign and wish you had held back? >> yes. [laughing] [inaudible] >> sure, sure. i great question. i endorse john edwards because of the fact that he had the best political message i had ever heard, truly. there were two of america's and the dividing line between the two americas was growing over time. so i get very close with elizabeth edwards, with john edwards, but what turned out was really a disgrace. i thought the greatest tragedy of all was what happened to his wife. worked hard to get in the vice presidents. worked hard to get you on the ticket.

became as it's a very close with elizabeth. i say this, two weeks before elizabeth died i spoke with her on the phone, and i said to her, elizabeth, i don't how you do it. this guy is just, brought you record group and cause you great consternation why do stay with him? she said, guess he's the father of my children and of going to die and somebody has to take care of the children. there were the two young ones, were pretty young at the time. but obviously hindsight is always 2020 that had i known that about in that he was -- evidently he was like that long before this venture with this woman. that was really heartbreaking for me because i thought he could make the country better. i really believe that. i really, really believed that. and no one has articulated a political message with more intensity than john edwards did.

and when he would get up and speak, he would tell you about the two americas, and we know that the two americas exist today and they are even more pronounced today than they were at the time. he had a great message, but to think that it was all sort of phony, that he just wasn't living it, bothered me. it was, i wish i could've taken aback, to be honest with you, because i talked to a lot of people. i travel all over the country for him and work for him. he wasn't the real deal. that's where you make a comparison between he and a guy like walter peterson walter was the real deal. he was the real deal. our relationship, jimmy is the real deal. look at the things you do for your community and for those who have needs. i i mean, that's the real deal, isn't it?

that's the real deal, running a fundraiser for the food pantry, that's what it's all about and i can't ever see john edwards doing that. he was just not, turned out he wasn't a good guy. my mistake and i should have recognized that, but sometimes you are blinded by the fact that you care so much about the message and move forward. >> that was an interesting part of the article. some people over the years have criticized lou for taking so long to make his decision on an adjustment for president. some people referring that he likes the attention that all those candidates give him, but in talking to him there's a responsibility and he takes the responsibility seriously because that win in new hampshire is so important, could make all the difference. anyone else have a question ask.

>> since the day i met lou in high school, you have been a caring man across the board. he felt a lot of people. all the kids you coached, cared because you cared, and to me that's something special. >> thank you. [applause] >> thank you. what can i say? thank you. really and i were at the funeral just a couple of days ago, and i think one of the shortcomings of this life, you expect your place to live longer than you do and it's tragic when they pass before you. we lost dickey powers and jimmy was another great player for me. billy, you remember jimmy. he was a halfback, really good.

his older brother played with me at unh. he was a guard but to lose players like that, it's very disheartening to be honest with you. making sure that the players got the best when you are coaching them was the most important thing for me. i tried to do everything i could for them. some people like that some people didn't like that but i worked them hard, i'll tell that. i think i was a hard ass coach, but making sure that they got what they needed, and friendship, the friendship that turned into lifelong relationships. like billy who is with me now, who is helping us campaign after campaign after campaign. bobby is with us, campaign after campaign after campaign. and dick whom i had in school at

bishop brownlee, and artie, all of these guys. i think that's what life is all about, and i appreciate that very much. >> someone else? >> my wife always asks me a question. [laughing] [inaudible] >> are you saving it? what's for dinner? [laughing] the key question. but again, i think this thing was supposed to income and thank the library so much for allowing us to use the building we appreciate it very much. thank all of you for coming. i hope you read the book unlike the book, and we just keep going. >> you will enjoy the kennedy story i'm sure. we won't spoil it all.

>> i guess that's it. thank you. [applause] >> there's no pizza better than -- thank you, everybody. [inaudible conversations] >> booktv visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading this summer. >> i got a couple books i'm reading now. one is the american spirit by david mccullough. it's the compilation of speeches is given he's one of my favorite authors. he wrote a biography of john adams and written a number of

biographies but also the book 1776 that i read a while back that, it's about that pivotal year and the founding of america but it's really about george washington who is my favorite president. another book, i come up from a think tank back on, that's what it for 25 it before i ran for congress. i'm kind of a nerd i guess, and i've been in meetings with scott with what his ideas of what we need to do to have a quality healthcare system, and to think i would add an affordable healthcare system. a couple of the books that i've read this summer, one back in the spring come was the little things by andy andrews. it's a really good little book. i've read i think practically everything and andy has written turkeys an excellent author. my wife is reading one of his