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currently his choice to keep the options open and continue with the campaign.
    I can understand why the doctors felt that way. I am confident neither of them had ever before treated a cardiac patient who was simultaneously a candidate for Congress. What is significant, though, is that neither of them wanted to focus solely on their personal responses. They listened to me and thought about the negative impact it might have if they placed limits on my aspirations. Thirty-five years later, I still consider Dr. Davis’s reminder that “hard work never killed anyone” some of the finest medical advice I have ever received. I believe it sustained me through my four subsequent heart attacks and the numerous other cardiac challenges I faced as I pursued my career in public service. For that, I will always be grateful.
    •  •  •
    As I rested in Casper over the next few weeks, for the first of what would be many times in my life, I had to contemplate heart disease as a political issue. Even after I got the go-ahead from the doctors to continue the campaign, I considered what the voters would think. Would they be concerned that I might not be physically up to the job? Would my opponents try to use my heart attack against me? How would I explain to the voters exactly what had happened—and why, in spite of the heart attack, I wanted to go forward and pursue my political aspirations to represent them in the US Congress?
    I convened a number of people I trusted to discuss the way forward. Bob Teeter was my pollster. We had met on the Ford campaign, and he would remain a close confidant until his untimely death in 2004. Bob Gardner, another Ford campaign veteran, was my advertising director. The best man at our wedding and my campaign chairman, Dave Nicholas, also joined us. And of course Lynne was my most trusted adviser. We got together and explored the idea of conducting a statewide poll to ascertain what impact the heart attack had on public attitudes toward me. We realized pretty quickly, though, that we didn’t know what questions to ask. No one had ever tried to measure the impact of a candidate’s heart attack in the middle of a campaign. We decided to try to put together an ad to address voters, thinking the direct approach would be best. There had been plenty of coverage of my heart attack in the Wyoming media, so the ad took the issue head-on. We gathered a group of friends and supporters, and we all sat on the lawn in our backyard. With the cameras rolling, we discussed famous political leaders who’d suffered heart attacks. We talked about Lyndon Johnson and Dwight Eisenhower and how they’d continued in the highest office in the land after their coronaries. When we showed the finished product to a small group of friends, it bombed. People said it was way too depressing and jarring. We scrapped it.
    While we thought of other ideas and approaches, Lynne spent a good deal of time filling in for me on the campaign trail. She spoke atRepublican events all across Wyoming. She was so good that many of my supporters suggested, only half-jokingly, that we might be better off if she were the candidate.
    We finally settled on the idea of writing a letter that we’d send to every registered Republican voter in Wyoming explaining the facts of my heart attack and why I had decided to continue my campaign for Congress. I addressed why I had decided to run in the first place, laying out the issues that had initially inspired my candidacy. Then I continued:
    A man’s political beliefs are only a part of what motivates him, and in June an event in my life gave me reason to evaluate why I am running for Congress from a different perspective. While I was campaigning in Cheyenne, I suffered a mild heart attack.
    I explained that I’d been given a green light by the doctors to go ahead with my run, that there was no health reason I couldn’t run for and serve in Congress. Then I wrote:
    An event like a heart attack, however mild