Campaigning for a Healthier America

I realized that if it was important for me to take care of myself and to live longer, I had to set aside time dedicated to exercising and keep it as religiously as any appointment on my calendar that day. People ask me how I find the time to exercise. I tell them, I don't. I make it.

Has it been tough to stick with it?

It's a critical part of my life now. I'd never been athletic. My last run was in the eighth grade when sadistic gym teachers forced us to run the mile. I hated it. But in March, I ran 26 miles for the Little Rock Marathon. I still can't believe I did that. And I did it and felt terrific ... When my wife, Janet, and I were in D.C. for President Bush's inaugural activities, we were invited to sit in the president's box during the parade. I was training for the marathon then, and I had to run five miles that day. So my wife went to the parade while I watched it on TV as I ran five miles on the treadmill at the hotel. I started laughing midrun because it hit me, wow, I must be really serious about this [to give up that invitation].

You've said you'll make health care a top priority when you take the helm of the National Governors Association this summer. Are you going to focus on obesity?

I will be taking on obesity and other issues involving changing the culture of health from treating chronic disease to seeking to prevent them. If you look at the early 1900s when most Americans were dying prematurely from infectious diseases like smallpox, malaria, whooping cough and diphtheria, the public-health community and government came together and said we need to deal with these issues--vaccinate people, find cures, clean up the water supply and the food supply. They tackled it as a public-health problem and, in a reasonably short period of time, we eliminated most of these diseases. We need to do the same thing with chronic disease [such as obesity].

How well has the Healthy Arkansas initiative worked?