Hallie Eisenberg

...what would you say? That's the premise for Ron Reagan's book of the same title. He asked 58 different personalities, mostly celebrities, to think about that question and then write an essay for his newly published book. If You Had Five Minutes With the President was released at a celebrity-filled party in New York during the Republican National Convention. The event—and the book's publisher, The Creative Coalition, are both non-partisan.

The Scholastic News Kids Press Corps was on hand at the party, held in the Kenneth Cole store at Rockefeller Center on Monday, August 30. They talked to a number of celebrities about the assignment from former President Ronald Reagan's son.

Ron Reagan

Actor George Wendt, most famous for his character Norm on the sitcom Cheers, explained that the assignment did not specify a certain President. His essay was aimed as much at members of Congress as the President, he said.

"I would ask him [the President] to try to make things a little friendlier in the country between the two [political] parties," Wendt told Scholastic News Online. "Right now the divisiveness is really kind of showing a lot of anger and I don't know if the President is entirely to blame for that always. A lot of that is the members of Congress. They don't seem to work and play with each other like good schoolchildren are taught to do and that's a big problem.

George Wendt

Hallie Eisenberg, who recently starred in the TV movie The Goodbye Girl, wrote about increasing funding to the arts in education. As a vegan (someone who does not eat any food products from animals, such as meat, milk, and eggs), Eisenberg is also concerned about the treatment of animals in factories and slaughterhouses.

Scholastic News Online asked the former Pepsi spokeskid why she chose the arts as an important issue.

"It gives people more confidence, and I just think that's a great thing," she said. "Also, with the animals, like I said I'm a vegan, and how they're treated in the factory farms and slaughterhouses is so inhumane. The fact that people don't know about that is why I wanted to try to tell more people about what happens."

Eisenberg said she would like to direct her remarks in the book to whichever candidate wins the next election.

"I wish I could," she said. "I could get a lot done!"

But you're only 12 years old, Scholastic News Online pointed out. What can a 12-year-old do? A lot, was her answer!

"I definitely think that kids should be more involved with politics, because just to know about what happens is really important, as well as you can do a lot to help out," she said.

Mike Farrell

Mike Farrell, of the TV shows M*A*S*H and Providence, said that in his essay he urged his unnamed President to demonstrate principled leadership. Politics play too large a role in the decisions made, he said.

"I think it's very important for people to understand and for the President, whoever he or she is, to understand that the people in America have grown up with an understanding of certain fundamental principles, like freedom and justice and equality before the law," Farrell said. "Those things have been subverted over the time by political considerations. I think that does a disservice to the country and I think it does a disservice to the people like yourselves who are going to be carrying the burdens of these policies in the future."

If Mike Farrell were President, he said the world would be more peaceful. "I would see to it that the power that we have in this nation would be used as an example for people to find a way to live together peacefully with mutual respect," he said.

Ron Reagan wrote the forward to the book. He said he hopes it will have a positive impact on its readers.

"There are a lot of different voices in there with a real variety of opinions, and who knows how that could affect somebody," Reagan told Scholastic News Online. "The key is to get involved one way or the other, whatever your philosophy might be."

Newsweek reporter Eleanor Clift wrote an essay in the book, but was also at the party to cover it for her magazine's blog. What did she write in her essay?

Eleanor Clift

"I say that if I had five minutes with the President, I'd like to talk to him about the caste system in this country; that the people at the top do better every year and the people at the bottom do worse," she said. "I'd like to see that corrected, with a particular emphasis on making public schools better."

Joe Pantoliano, formerly of The Sopranos, is co-chairman of the Creative Coalition. Scholastic News Online asked him to explain the group and its function.

"The Creative Coalition is a nonprofit advocacy group that brings issues to the forefront so that people can see what everybody's thinking and come to a conclusion on a particular issue," he said. "We believe in First Amendment rights, arts, public funding in the arts and for schools, and keeping an eye on runaway outsourcing of the motion picture industry—trying to keep it in the United States."

Pantoliano said he became concerned about outsourcing when he was working on the film The Matrix. The story is based in the United States, but was filmed in Australia because it's cheaper.

Joe Pantoliano

"The studios didn't have to pay medical or pension plans and it opened my eyes to a lot of things," he said. "I got concerned and now I fight for wages and better working conditions and making sure that American-made-distributed, and—developed movies are made in America and that the American government—federal and state—provide the same taxes on it that other countries provide so that we can be competitive in business with them."

If You Had Five Minutes With the President is the coalition's first book. Pantoliano hopes the book will inspire young people to get involved in issues and vote. "We want to educate and to get people interested—young people like yourself," he said. "Read this book and maybe you'll want to go out and register to vote this year. It's real important to me that young people vote. I don't care how they vote—I don't care who they vote for. I just want them to vote."

—Photos by Suzanne Freeman