Newsman touts JFK book in Tampa

Veteran newsman and "Hardball" host Chris Matthews will be in Tampa this weekend, touting his new book about John F. Kennedy.

"No. 1 on The New York Times best-seller list for 10 weeks," he said in a telephone interview Monday.

Matthews, host of MSNBC's "Hardball" and NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" has written five books, from the classic "Hardball: How Politics Is Played, Told by One Who Knows the Game," to his latest, "Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero," which was released in November.

Inkwood Books will host a book signing and question-and-answer session with Matthews at 2 p.m. Saturday in The Tampa Tribune auditorium, 202 S. Parker St.

Matthews said he wanted to write a book about Kennedy "to pursue who he was and what he was really like; to get beyond all the other books I had read."

He said time was running out to speak with people who knew Kennedy, and he wanted to do interviews before those people died. First-hand conversations, personal journals, audio and video tapes and documents provided the background research for the book, he said.

Matthews said answers emerged. Though charismatic with the American people, Kennedy was a shrewd politician who didn't let the emotions of others sway him.

Matthews' book is not entirely flattering, he said.

"He was cunning and cold," Matthews said. "He had no self-made friends."

Matthews has followed American politics since the first Eisenhower campaign and became enthralled with the historic rivalry between Kennedy and Richard Nixon. He first worked in the U.S. Senate after a Peace Corps stint in Africa, followed by a White House position as a presidential speechwriter, and finally as top aide to former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill, D-Mass.

Switching to journalism in the late 1980s, Matthews served as Washington bureau chief for the San Francisco Examiner and made the move to television in 1994, launching "Hardball" three years later. "The Chris Matthews Show" on Sunday mornings began in 2002.

Matthews' visit to Tampa comes seven months before the Republican National Convention. "It will be very big for you guys," he said. "If (Mitt) Romney plays it right, there will be a lot of excitement."

He said Tampa will get a look at the new phenomenon in politics.

"Political tourists," he said. "They are not activists; they are regular middle-class, regular people who get into their car or whatever and come to watch and talk to the politicians."

The convention, slated from Aug. 27-30, is expected to draw 50,000 visitors and up to 15,000 journalists who will fill 15,000 hotel rooms and 75 venues, tourism officials say.