Who is the next Harold Hughes?
...a challenge
Harold Hughes answered an after-hours call at the front door of the governor's mansion wearing a light yellow bathrobe, holding a cigarette in his hand. The year must have been 1966 or 1967.
Hughes looked at the assorted teenagers 'playing' various musical instruments, including a big base drum, and laughed nonstop as the youngsters 'serenaded' him.
Hughes was a big man. His stature was enormous. His voice was big and deep. And the mark he left on the state was massive.
His road to the governor's mansion was unconventional. He'd been a truck driver living in Ida Grove. His drinking had become uncontrollable when he hit bottom one night and crawled into a bathtub with a shotgun in hand, preparing to end the misery he felt and had caused around him. He cried out to God and felt a life-altering sense of grace, light, and love that, from that day forward, would become his fuel and his essence in the future.
Harold Hughes has been on my mind since I walked those steps of the former governor's mansion the other day when Richard and I met with the now private home's owner, John Beard, to discuss an event in December for paid subscribers of this column (stay tuned for details).
I was one of those kids in the rag-tag band that arrived at his home unannounced. From that day forward, Harold Hughes would be so much more than a significant figurehead; he was a regular guy who opened the door in his bathrobe to laugh at an off-beat prank by some youngsters.
When Harold Hughes ran for governor in 1963, Iowa was considered a solidly Republican state, and his opponent was an incumbent deemed to be unbeatable. Hughes was a rough-appearing truck driver, given little chance of winning.
It's important to remember stories like this one. In my view, there is a pearl of unhealthy conventional wisdom among some Iowa Democrats that they shouldn't encourage candidates to run for 'hopeless' races. It’s called ‘targeting resources.’
Harold Hughes won a 'hopeless' race.
A history professor named Dick Clark unseated Senator Jack Miller, a long-time incumbent who was thought unbeatable, by walking across the state on what he called a 'listening tour.' The year was 1972.
When Ruth Harkin was fresh out of law school and she and her husband, Tom, lived in Ames, the Story County Democratic chair asked her to run for County Attorney. He assured her there was no way she could win, but they needed to fill out the ballot. She won, even though her husband, Tom Harkin, lost his first congressional race that year. The following year, he defeated another 'unbeatable' incumbent, Congressman Bill Scherle.
From his first electoral victory in 1962, Harold Huges was a reform-minded populist who went on to run for U.S. Senator in 1968 and even toyed with running for president.
TODAY
Somewhere in Iowa, someone feels hopeless and furious about their state and neighborhood.
Will he or she have a last straw? Will it be the threat of the local public school shutting down in a few years when the private school voucher bill has inevitably choked the life out of the local grade school? Or will it be that they can no longer fish in nearby rivers and creeks and know too many people who have developed life-threatening illnesses due to the water quality that no one in a position to do something seems to care about cleaning up? Maybe the last straw was the nursing home going out of business in town due to political wrongdoing at the state level, and elderly patients have nowhere to turn.
Or maybe it's this week's story of a teenager in Nebraska who took a pill to induce abortion and now faces jail time, as does her mother. Click for this story in the New York Times.
Or the story of a friendly neighbor who lost a vegetable crop because the corporate farm landowner next door sprayed the corn on a windy day. The pesticide blew across the road, making his tomato plants and zucchini toxic, costing him the harvest. But it was the last straw when the landowner became indifferent and unwilling to make it right. The vegetable grower didn’t have the money to wage a legal battle. He used to have a friendly smile when folks passed him. His blue eyes have lost their twinkle today, and his family worries about him.
Maybe the last straw is that the folks with the power and money who want to force a takeover of farmland through eminent domain for an unwanted pipeline damn the consequences to the landowner.
What is your last straw?
Pundits didn’t give Harold Hughes a chance to win. But the man’s internal compass and belief in helping those who need it most compelled him to battle. And he'd experienced real battle in World War II, so for Private Harold Hughes, putting his name on a ballot paled in comparison. He had something money couldn't buy, however. He had a belief in a power higher than himself and a belief in the people he wanted to serve.
Give me a Harold Hughes over an ambitious career windsock any day.
LUNCH WITH HUGHES
In 1992, Harold Hughes and I had lunch at a Thai restaurant in downtown Des Moines. Knocking on the governor's mansion door back in the 1960s to serenade a man holding the highest office in the state was a precursor to a myriad of unconventional acts of rebellion. Some were equally nonsensical, others more purposeful. Our lunch became a three-hour, soul-searching, laughter-filled, and spiritual conversation. We talked about how lucky we were to be crazy and chart paths others thought were nuts.
Those damnable cigarettes caught up with him, and he died at 74 in 1996 of emphysema, pneumonia, and heart disease.
WHY NOT?
If you know someone you think would be a terrific office holder, why not send them this column? Are they the kind of person who would show up at the door in their bathrobe and laugh at a bunch of teenagers playing music? Tell them you thought of them and wished someone with empathy, conviction, and leadership ability would run for office. If you plant the seed, maybe it will take root.
Hey, maybe 'that person' is YOU.
As Harold Hughes once said, "I have long believed that government will only change for the better when people change for the better in their hearts."
Are you a heart-changer? Are you looking for a sign? How's this:
IF IT'S TO BE, IT'S UP TO ME
Filing deadlines for running for the Iowa House or Senate (you have plenty of time):
https://sos.iowa.gov/elections/electioninfo/general/index.html
Or check your local county auditor for other races.
OUR MONDAY ZOOM LUNCH PODCAST GUEST IS MARILYN MAYE. LEGENDARY CABARET SINGER. HERE’S YOUR LINK:
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More on Harold Hughes:
THE IOWA WRITERS’ COLLABORATIVE
Check out the columns from our members last week:
Zach Wahls!
Harold Hughes spoke at an Iowa Public Health Association meeting because I asked him too. Jack Kelly said, "How did you get Governor Harold Hughes?". I said. "I asked". I had met him before. He was well received, and many people attended his presentation that morning. I paid his fee and Jack Kelly insisted we pay some more. So I did. He was retired then. He was a great man. He was a great spekaer and he loved God.