Up From Searchlight

You and your wife later became Mormons. Do you think that your own achievements and the campaign of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney have changed the country's impressions of Mormons?
I hope so. I hope my religion has not been a barrier to how people feel about me. With Mitt Romney, I think his problems in the election had a lot less to do with his religion than that he couldn't figure out who he was politically. He was for abortion, against abortion. He was for immigration, against immigration.

In your book you describe several interactions with soldiers wounded in Iraq who believe the war effort is futile and should be stopped. Do you believe most soldiers serving in Iraq feel that way?
No, I don't think so. Soldiers don't think that way. If you're a baseball player you fight till the very end. They should do that. That's what they're trained to do and that's what I want them to do.

You describe having to spend 9/11 in a safe location with Sen. Trent Lott and Sen. Don Nickles, then the Republican Senate leadership. Did you think that you were bonding with those men that day in a way that would lessen partisan rancor?
Oh yes, and we did a wonderful job for six months after 9/11. We joined together remarkably. We did great things for New York, for the people at the Pentagon. That trip we took to the hideaway was one that was very important. We worked together until President Bush gave up working with us.

You write a lot about your experiences having been threatened and attacked during the waning days of the Las Vegas mob era as chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board. There is a whole industry built out of nostalgia for the Vegas mob era. What are people missing when they say "Vegas was better when the mob ran it"?
The people who wish it was the way it used to be don't appreciate the fact that in those days the city was 100,000 people. Now it's a community of 2 million. We can never go backward. But the idea of the mob museum (planned for downtown Las Vegas) came from (Las Vegas Mayor) Oscar Goodman and Harry Reid. I think that's a great idea for the people of Nevada. The history was there. We can't deny it, and the people who come to Las Vegas should understand it's a new era and we should not run from the fact. We can't run from that any more than I can run from Searchlight.

© 2008