He is the son of Adrian and Pauline Cannon. His father was a dreamer who bounced between blue-collar and white-collar jobs and even ran a bookstore near the LDS temple in Los Angeles. Pauline, who is alive and living in Salt Lake City, is the opposite, very practical.

Their second son tries to balance that parental dichotomy in his own style.

"My aspiration in life is to be a perfect combination of dreaming and practical implementation," he says.

The analytical side is worn clearly on his sleeve, but the dreamer is never far away and colors both his decision-making and his speech. He often says, "What's cool about that is . . ."

One of Cannon's current crusades is a proposed bill that would keep the Internet free from taxation and pave the way for voice-over Internet protocol — in other words, cheap telephone service.

"What's cool about that is that a guy in the Philippines with a problem with his crop could bring a leaf in from the field and show it on video via the Internet to a guy at Utah State University in Logan," Cannon says. "His crop is saved and the local economy grows. If we don't regulate the Internet, people anywhere can sell into the Internet market, and that makes peoples' lives richer all over the world."

Cannon didn't expect Congress to be so invigorating, and he certainly didn't need it for idea thrills. He was worth more than $20 million when he ran for Congress in 1996, and as a venture capitalist, he was surrounded by innovation.

But he was "terrified" that Republicans would lose seats in the '96 election and that incumbent Bill Orton, a Democrat, would cast the deciding vote to elect Dick Gephardt as speaker of the House.

When he failed to find someone else to run against Orton, Cannon spent nearly $1.5 million of his own money to run himself. He beat Orton — a former classmate at BYU's law school — 51 percent to 47 percent, and he prepared to be a one-term congressman.

"I really thought I'd go back to Washington, cast one serious vote — for Newt Gingrich — be there for the minimum time possible, miss a lot of votes, not be very engaged," he says. "But that didn't happen. I became engaged very quickly."

By contrast, his business interests have suffered during his four terms in Congress. A report last week showed his self-reported net worth has fallen to between $2.9 million and $12 million.

"It's very clear I'd have made more money if I hadn't been a congressman," he says. "I was in a mode of making money. I'm not now. Occasionally I think about making a difference by making money again. Just like there are visionary things to do in Congress for society, there are visionary things to do in business that help society."