From gambling to the Governor’s mansion

>>> our next guest started as the son of a casino in a place called las vegas . he grew up to be a jawinger thought you could bet the house on and the effects are still being felt today as he is enjoying his second material as secretary of state . how did a chicago family with roots on the wrong side of the law go on to live the american dream ? the only man who can answer that question is bob miller himself, the author of "son of a gambling man." governor miller, thank you for joining us. first, i have a nasty habit, obnoxious habit of saying nevada . i will say nevada .

>> except there.

>> i'm correcting myself. your family's story is the story of the state of nevada which has become this large and the fastest growing state in the country and basically was built in the last 50 years.

>> i hope that's accurate. my intent was to parallel the met morph os it is of my family with that of nevada , more particularly, las vegas .

>> so we learned a little about your rough and tumble family. what impact did a lot of the lessons that you learned from your family have on your politics later in life?

>> well, one lesson that i learned spi admired my father to do what he said he would do. and as one local attorney that is mentioned in the book said, that's probably because he was a bookie. as a bookie, you have to be true to your word. now, that's something i admire. as it related to my politics, it was an issue that was raised in every election that i ran. my father passed away before i ever held political office . nonetheless, he was there every election. at least in name. as others tried to bootstrap his associations to me.

>> and governor, how have nevada politics george w. bush won the state twice. now president obama has won state twice. we've also seen huge shift in the latino demographics going from 20% in 2000 to 27% in 2010 . have the politics there really shifted?

>> it shifted a lot over the years. president clinton , of course, won the state also. perhaps that's why he wrote the forward to my book. because i ran that campaign, but nevada has historically been one that has a combination of a democratic and republican leadership in various offices. the demographics in las vegas have changed dramatically. we have many more hispanics moving into the community. much more democratic registration. that is a reason i think president obama has carried nevada the last two elections as opposed to previously when george w. bush did.

>> so do you see nevada in the future becoming more and more blue, going more and more blue with the explosion of hispanics and latinos that will be there? or do you think it's going to be a swing state and go back and forth?

>> i think we're always going to be in play. i think that the indications are it will be a little more blue, but it's always going to be a state in play. and it depends on the candidates, the election. it's interesting, because a small state like ours has received a lot of attention in the last several elections because we are a swing state .

>> hey, governor, i just want to get one in really quickly, it's something i'm curious about. you know harry reid pretty well. comes from your state . how much longer do you think he's going to stick around as the majority leader in the senate?

>> hasn't indicated to me one way or another. my opinion of harry, he's going to stick around as long as the electorate wil keep him there. he already indicated he wants to run in the next election a couple years from now. harry is a fighter. that's just his nature. he enjoys what he's doing.

>> could you also quickly weigh in on the fight going on in new jersey? the lawsuit against new jersey trying to legalize sports betting and join nevada in that ranks. what do you think?

>> well, of course, we in nevada prefer monopolies when we're the beneficiaries of monopolies.

>> we all do. we all do.

>> i think the nfl and ncaa would agree with you.

>> yes. that's, of course, whbeen one of the limitations we have to experience by having sports betting , mayor sports franchises and ncaa tournaments stay away from us because of sports betting . new jersey would have that if they were successful in obtaining sports betting . but we were grandfathered in. i kind of like it that way.

>> all right. former governor bob miller from nevada . thank you very much.

>>> up next, toure does what he does best. selling himself. i mean, his book.

>> you love that read. love that read. hey! did you