If only more Americans had as subtle an understanding of the role personality plays, I think the political environment would be much different.

I think, personally, that a man as committed and as focussed as Lance would far better in a political position than a man like Bush, who floated through Yale and Harvard and had all the ‘right’ qualifications. If he can manage government anywhere neer his own self management, then what more does he need?

SNIP

When I arrive at the flat at the scheduled time, it is Sheryl Crow, his new pop-star girlfriend, who greets me at the door, very warm and welcoming. She comments favourably on the haircut, then Armstrong appears at the end of the hallway, smaller and slighter than he looked on the bike in Paris, big Texan smile, T-shirt, blue jeans, brown boots. A long, firm handshake and we go into the kitchen for coffee and curly little chocolate biscuits he says he got from a store down the street.

He lives, close to several of his US Postal Service team colleagues, in a first-floor, four-bedroom apartment at the heart of Girona’s old town. Although a confirmed atheist, he takes me almost immediately to the tiny chapel, lovingly describes its features, and, above all, the 15th-century painting of the Crucifixion that takes pride of place.

A married man with three young children, he bought the flat as a wreck and, with the help of a young Texan architect, transformed it into a beautiful family home. Huge photos of his children cover the wall of the study, but the marriage to Kristin is over, so Armstrong’s four-year-old son, Luke, and his two-year-old twin daughters, Grace and Isabelle, are in Texas. As he’s showing off the 12th-century stonework in the tiny cloistered garden, he says this is where he used to play with them and he misses his children so much that it hurts.

Once we settle down to talk at a long wooden table, we are swapping stories about George W. Bush, his fellow Texan. We agree that our politics are different to Bush’s, but that the President is smarter, funnier and more likeable than the caricature. Even Sheryl, whose politics Armstrong describes as “way out Left”, says that it’s hard to meet Bush and not like him. I had assumed, because he and Bush were Texans and I’d seen pictures of them laughing and joking in the Oval Office, that Armstrong was a Republican. But he says his politics are “middle to Left”. He is “against mixing up State and Church, not keen on guns, pro women’s right to choose”. And very anti war in Iraq.

SNIP

http://www.lancearmstrongfanclub.com/uktimesonline.html