Journalism was his birthright. The great-grandson of Deseret News publisher George Q. Cannon, grandson of Deseret News editor Joseph J. Cannon and grandnephew of Frank J. Cannon, founder of the Ogden Standard and an editor of The Salt Lake Tribune, Cannon was poised to purchase the Standard-Examiner, of Ogden, in 1993.

But the Ohio-based Sandusky newspaper chain came in with a higher offer in the final hour.

Cannon counts it as one of many moments of chance that have defined him. "Never underestimate the role of serendipity in your life," Cannon says.

His life turned then, as it so often did, on family connections, political friendships and his own sense of duty. Fresh off an unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate, Cannon quietly returned to his life as a Washington attorney and owner of Utah's largest steel mill.

Deliberately low-key and soft-spoken, Cannon has brushed political greatness, withstood Machiavellian politics and survived his own somewhat risky financial gambles.

Except for that very public run for office 13 years ago, he is a largely behind-the-scenes figure in Utah politics. A nonpartisan party insider, he has been vilified by the Republican right wing. And those who should be his enemies - the Democrats - like him. Nevertheless, Republican delegates by a narrow margin last weekend elected him to a third two-year term as state GOP chairman.

A self-described "Mormon fatalist," he says, "I figure whatever happens is the right thing."

Nixon memories: Cannon remembers being one of two Republicans in his high school class in Southern California. When he returned to his native Utah to study political science at Brigham Young University, the state was Democratic. He persevered. A summer internship with the Republican National Committee turned into an internship with the U.S. Supreme Court - Cannon's uncle was Warren Burger's chief administrator.

Another summer in college, that delayed RNC internship turned into a job mobilizing Midwesterners to vote for Richard Nixon in the 1972 presidential race. Personally turned off by Nixon's spending in a lopsided race against Democrat George McGovern, Cannon ended up writing in another Republican's name on his ballot. He still got a job with Nixon's inaugural committee, assigning commemorative license plates.

"People would call up and scream at me," Cannon remembers. He had to arrange an unprecedented two license plates with the number "1" on them - for H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, Nixon aides later indicted in the Watergate break-in and cover-up. A student of Washington intrigue, Cannon says, "That was a fascinating insight - ratification of my decision not to vote for Nixon."

After returning to BYU for law school, he moved back to Washington and joined former Secretary of State Jim Baker's law firm. A year later, he was doing legal work for the first President Bush's campaign against Ronald Reagan.

When the two campaigns merged, Cannon worked on the Reagan-Carter debate team. He hoped for a job in the White House Counsel's Office. Instead, he was shuttled off to the Environmental Protection Agency - slight reward for initially backing the wrong Republican. He survived Reagan's house-cleaning a few months later and was put in charge of simplifying - some say gutting - environmental regulations. He claims credit for removing lead from gasoline and pushing studies on the effects of second-hand smoke. As a 32-year-old neophyte, Cannon says, the EPA seasoned him.

"It changed everything. It was a real growing-up experience," he says. "The agency had gone through hell. It made me a manager. My very closest friends in Washington date from that time."

He was forced to fire Barbara Bankoff, the newly-single mother of an 8-year-old daughter. She ended up sending him a "thank you" note, "for firing me in the most caring, sympathetic way one could conceive of.

"It wasn't a total surprise to me. But he was so distraught. He was worried he was throwing me out on the street with my little girl," Bankoff says now. He rehired her when the bloodletting was over.

That softy reappeared a few years later when Cannon heard USX, the Utah County steel plant, was on the verge of closing. While he was in law school, his wife, Jan, had worked as a secretary at the mill. He felt obligated to try to save the place.

Mission at the mill: "I did not intend to buy or own a steel mill," Cannon says, "but it was a mission. I knew it was a lot of jobs." With some arm-twisting from Sen. Orrin Hatch, USX agreed to sell for $44 million to Cannon and his partner, Robert Grow.

"He knew if those cook ovens shut down, Geneva would disintegrate in a number of days," Hatch says. "He knew that would hurt our state."

In Utah County, Cannon was part saint, part demon for his efforts, depending on who you talked to. Utah Senate President John Valentine says those who lived close to the plant and worked there were grateful. Those who choked on the air pollution it produced were less enamored. Nevertheless, the Orem Republican says, Cannon gets credit for boosting the county and state economy when they were teetering, temporarily saving nearly 2,000 jobs.

"He was in the right place at the right time," Valentine says.

The mill's prospects - and Cannon's optimism - quickly soured. The business tested his relationship with his brother, Congressman Chris Cannon, when they disagreed over its future. Geneva managers twice filed for bankruptcy. Cannon, who made millions when the company went public, ultimately resigned as chairman last spring when the factory was liquidated to pay off creditors.

At the same time he was trying to save the steel mill, Cannon ran for office. When Sen. Jake Garn resigned, Cannon joined a platoon of candidates - including Bob Bennett - facing off in the Republican convention. The campaign for the Republican nomination was intense. In the face of a whisper campaign, Cannon admitted smoking one joint of marijuana - sold to him by an undercover agent - while at BYU. He hired a "glittering stable of talent," in Bennett's words, and spent more than $6 million. Bennett countered with $2 million of his own money. After Bennett won, the two former foes met for lunch and cleared the air.

"It wasn't nasty. There were no negative ads, no personal attacks," Bennett says. He wanted Cannon leading the party last year when he ran for re-election and backed Cannon's run for an unusual third term.

Cannon only regrets the money lost.

He retreated for a while, returning to his Washington law practice full time while his family remained behind in Utah. He ran for party chairman in 2001 after his brother and several other members of Utah's delegation asked him to.

He still has strong allies in Utah's Washington delegation. When former Gov. Mike Leavitt was appointed to the EPA, Cannon schooled the new administrator's advisers on the Clean Air Act - for hours.

"He's an expansive thinker. What stimulates him are the ideas," says Natalie Gochnour. "At the time, it was just a big black box to us. He got you excited to be there."

Although thinly stretched trying to split his time these days between Washington and Salt Lake City - he says his goal is not to miss church in Utah on Sunday - and battered by constant criticism from the party's archconservatives, Cannon still responded to Hatch's request that he run for a third term.

Friends in unlikely places: Valentine likens Cannon's task to "herding cats." Vice Chairwoman Enid Greene says he has the patience of Job.

Cannon also has a fan in former Utah Democratic Party Chairwoman Meg Holbrook. While he is as competitive as any Republican, Holbrook says Cannon doesn't make the fight personal.

"You know he's not going to kick your dog or pinch your kids," she says. "He'll stab you in the front, not in the back."

His nonpartisan appeal doesn't extend far into right-wing factions of his party. Many call him a tyrant and a liberal. But he labels such critics "whacktivists," who spend most of their considerable energy fighting over rules.

His political philosophy is hard to pin down. Cannon claims "mentors" and "rabbis" across the political spectrum - from Vice President Dick Cheney to former U.N. ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick. He listens to both Sean Hannity and Chris Matthews on satellite radio. And he calls Nixon an "evil genius" - crediting the disgraced former president for starting to pull American troops out of Vietnam, but questioning Nixon's attempts at wage and price controls.

Still determined to defeat U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson next year, he also manages to joke with the Democratic congressman during the weekly plane trip from Washington to Utah about switching parties.

"It's a team sport. At one level, it just matters whether you're a 'D' or an 'R'," he says. "And my job is to get Republicans elected."

In the same breath, Cannon adds, "God's not a Republican. He's not a Democrat. I don't think you have to hate people who are on the other side."

Joe Cannon

* Age: 56

* Family: Wife Jan and seven kids (including the autistic daughter of his deceased sister), ages 12 to 29 .

* Hero: Herbert Hoover. The Depression-era president gets a bad rap, Cannon says.

* Hobbies: Reading biographies and watching black-and-white movies. The only exceptions - "The Bridge on the River Kwai" and A&E's "Pride and Prejudice."

* Latest business venture: An exploratory tidal-electric power company that proposes putting turbines at the bottom of San Francisco Bay.