Description
"I realized early on that you had to be true to your convictions, even if it meant you might not win the next election.”—from Barbara Vucanovich When Reno Republican Barbara Vucanovich was elected to Congress in 1982, she became the first Nevada woman ever elected to a federal office and the first person to represent Nevada’s newly created Second Congressional District. Campaigning as a “tough grandmother,” she distinguished herself during her fourteen-year service in the U.S. House of Representatives by her indefatigable efforts on behalf of her state, her commitment to the conservative ideals of her party and the needs of her constituency, and her commonsensical approach to politics and her own life. In this engaging, richly informative memoir, Vucanovich reflects on her political career and the long road that led to it—her years as mother of a growing family, businesswoman, community and Republican Party volunteer, and her introduction to politics as the Northern Nevada manager of several of Paul Laxalt’s campaigns. Encouraged by Laxalt to run for Nevada’s new congressional seat, she became a sixty-one-year-old first-time political candidate. Vucanovich’s lively accounts of campaigning and office-holding offer a rare insider’s view of the day-to-day realities of a political career—the excitement and exhaustion of hard-fought campaigns; the endless cross-country commutes to maintain contact with constituents; the inner workings of Congress as bills are written, debated, and voted on. Her profiles of other politicians, from Reno city leaders to Nevada state and national officeholders to her congressional colleagues to presidents of the US, offer valuable insight into the personalities and politics of some of the most important American political figures of the past half century. This is a book that offers any reader, of whatever political persuasion, an exceptionally vivid account of politics on both the state and national levels during a notably turbulent era.

Reviews
"Barbara Vucanovich writes a wonderful book that should be 'must reading' for those intrigued about this state's history and politics." —David C. Henley, Lahontan Valley News & Fallon Eagle Standard, 4 August 2006

"As true and riveting a picture of one person's life as you are ever likely to read." —Harry Spencer, Senior Spectrum, February 2007

"Vucanovich and Cafferata have contributed an important Nevada narrative about a woman who came to Reno for a divorce, stayed because she fell in love with a man, and left a lasting mark because she fell in love with the state." - Nevada Historical Society Quarterly

Contents
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Part I. Far from the House
One. Grandmothers and Grandfathers--Tough and Not So Tough
Two. A Family of My Own
Three. Outside the Home
Four. Politics, Nevada Style
Five. My Mentor
Part II. A Flamingo in the Barnyard of Politics
Six. A Tough Grandmother
Seven. She Is the Congressman
Eight. A Day in the Life of a Congressman
Nine. Reelection and the Temptation of the Senate
Ten. Elections—Forgettable and Not So Memorable
Eleven. A Front Row Seat at the Revolution
Part III. Not Your Average Congressman
Twelve. Tough Irishman
Thirteen. A Woman's Place in the House
Fourteen. Nevada on My Mind
Fifteen. House Mates
Part IV. Back in the Great State of Nebraska
Sixteen. In the Other House (The White House)
Seventeen. A World Beyond the House
Eighteen. Twenty-seven Years and One Revolution Later
Part V. "Home Means Nevada"
Nineteen. Coming Home, Looking Back
List of Committee Assignments
Index

Excerpt
The arrival of Elisa Piper Cafferata, my first "grandbaby," in May 1962, was as apolitical as it gets. I had no idea that one day I would be campaigning for Congress and calling myself a "tough grandmother" in television commercials. In fact, when Elisa joined our family, I still felt much more like a mother than a grandmother. My youngest child, Susie, was two and a half years old. Elisa's birth was a defining moment, although I didn't see it that way at the time. Little did I know that her birth, and those of her two siblings, Farrell and Reynolds, and fourteen cousins, would come to define my political persona twenty years later.