When I learned that Lou Cannon died on Dec. 19 at age 92, my mind raced back to the last time I spoke to the veteran newshawk.

It was in 2022 at the reunion of the 56 Republican House members who came to Congress with Ronald Reagan in 1980. The event was held at the Reagan Foundation office in Washington, D.C.

I had the pleasure of being their dinner speaker the night before and Cannon — who had covered the 40th president since he became a candidate for governor of California in 1965 — spoke at the luncheon the following day.

I asked Lou something I had wondered about for years: having won the governorship of California over two-term incumbent Pat Brown by more than a million votes in 1966, why did Reagan win re-election by only half that amount in 1970?

It was a surprise, as then-Gov. Reagan was considered very popular and was already touted as a future Republican presidential candidate.

(In later years, Reagan seemed sensitive about recalling his impressive-but-less-than-resounding re-election margin and in several speeches spoke of "twice winning the governorship of the largest state, both times by over a million votes.")

"Because things had gotten better in the state — no race riot, no big tax increase — and Democratic and independent voters who voted for Reagan because they were mad at Brown came back to [Democrat nominee and former Assembly Speaker] Jesse Unruh," Cannon replied without hesitation, adding that a downward spiral in the economy was helping Democrats in midterm elections nationwide and that Democrat John Tunney had unseated Republican Sen. George Murphy by a larger margin that Reagan beat Unruh.

"And don’t forget," Cannon added, "Jesse had lost 100 pounds, down from 281, and quit the cigars and booze he loved so much. So he turned out to be a pretty good campaigner."

I knew Lou Cannon would give me the right answer.

As Sacramento correspondent for the San Jose Mercury News, Cannon wrote the 1968 book "Ronnie and Jesse: A Political Odyssey" — one of the earliest biographies of Reagan that laid the groundwork for his showdown with Unruh and was hailed as "the best book on state government" by New York Times literary critic John Leonard.

Californian Cannon saw and knew Reagan as few other reporters did.

Cannon had met Reagan when the then-actor decided to run for governor of California in 1965 and reported on him in Sacramento for the San Jose Mercury News for the eight years of his governorship.

Cannon had a front-row seat in his near-successful bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 1976 and his winning presidential races in 1980 and ’84, then reported on President Reagan as senior White House correspondent for The Washington Post.

By his own estimate, Cannon interviewed Reagan more than 50 times — at least 20 before he was president — and had numerous sessions with his closest presidential aides: Ed Meese, Mike Deaver, and William P. Clark, all of whom had worked for Reagan in his gubernatorial days.

But Cannon, like so many who covered Reagan, did not initially see him as the thoughtful conservative or the canny politician he was.

In his first two books on the future president, Cannon characterizes Reagan’s nationalized televised address for Barry Goldwater on Oct. 27, 1964, as "a washed-up, fifty-three year old movie actor [making] a speech on national television on behalf of a Republican presidential candidate who had no chance to be elected."

Accurate enough, but Reagan was at the time the host of the weekly TV anthology "Death Valley Days" and by no means "washed up."

Cannon went on to report that Reagan’s address, A Time For Choosing, "brought in $1 million for Republican candidates, more money than had been raised by any political speech up to that time."

Like many who covered Reagan in Sacramento, Cannon had mixed views about the first Golden State governor who had held no previous office.

While Cannon liked him personally, he later wrote that Reagan "started ineptly but soon evolved into a competent governor who was willing to sacrifice ideology for political achievement."

In 2003, he wrote "Governor Reagan: His Rise To Power" and generally gives the Reagan governorship good marks. 

At the end of the book, his first book on the presidency, published in 1982, Cannon concluded that given the president’s age and the near-successful shooting he survived a year before, "I believe that Reagan will not run again."

He also added his view that "economic unfairness was the Achilles heel of the Reagan presidency," and wondered aloud: "Will Reagan’s rhetorical belligerence against the Soviets be seen as a necessary precondition to international negotiation leading to genuine arms reduction? We shall see."

Nine years later, Cannon did see and, in "Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime," he concluded that, with the country in sound economic condition and the Soviet Union in rubble, the man he had covered from the beginning of his political career was indeed a consequential figure who had changed America and the world.

"The Role of a Lifetime" is widely considered one of the definitive books on the Reagan presidency.

Cannon’s credo for covering Reagan and all other politicians was a simple one: never start with presupposed notions about the subject, and take the art of journalism seriously.

In his own words, "Facts are precious. Opinions are cheap."

It seems a pretty good bet his most famous subject would agree.