Former Colorado three-term Governor Richard D. Lamm was such a complex figure.
On the one hand, he was one of the nicest people one could ever meet. He was consistently and naturally gracious and friendly. Whether you were a major power broker in politics or the proverbial anonymous person on the street, Dick Lamm treated you the same. We say this not because of our own personal experience with Lamm, and not only because of his reputation, but because we have known both the powerful politician and the “little old lady” who shared their memorable experiences of meeting Dick Lamm — even after he left office, when he did not need to court voters.
On the other hand, Lamm was a bulldog. When he had an idea in mind, a policy to pursue, a program to advance — stay out of the way! He read a lot, he did his homework, he boned up on contrary arguments, so that when he became convinced of a particular political policy, he was a bulldozer. He was a changemaker. As they say today, he made it happen.
It made no difference to Lamm whether his favored policy dovetailed with popular opinion or clashed with it. He had thought it through, and he would pursue it.
Sometimes he came down on a side we admired, such as his opposition to the Winter Olympics in Colorado in 1976 (“Olympics are death by suicide,” he said). Sometimes he came down on the the wrong side, such as his “duty to die” analysis of admittedly out-of-control health care costs. But wherever he came down, one always knew it was sincere. It was not a vote-getting gimmick. It was not a line to test the waters. It was not pandering to a constituency. It was what he thought was best.
For this reason, he could not be pegged. His warnings about unlimited immigration into the US were politically incorrect from the point of view of the left. His early legislation liberalizing abortion law (in 1967, six years before Roe v. Wade) were politically incorrect from the point of view of the right. Dick Lamm was a Democrat by party, but an independent by temperament, methodology and conviction.
Lamm sat down with the Intermountain Jewish News almost two years to the day before he died for a retrospective interview as an elder statesman. He loved the interview, but chafed as the nomenclature “elder statesman,” that is, until his beloved wife and political ally Dorothy remonstrated, telling him that at 84, the term matched perfectly. All concerned had a good laugh.
One of the topics Lamm addressed in the interview that he did not address when he was governor was global warming. It was not on the agenda when he left office in 1987. No matter. Lamm never stopped thinking. In the interview he said: “In a time of global warming we’re going to have to develop new lenses to look at public policy problems, and finitude is one of those lenses we’ll have to look through.”
The interviewer, IJN assistant editor Chris Leppek, noted:
“He showed that his wide-ranging intellect and curiosity are very much intact, through conversational detours that covered everything from anti-Semitism among Muslims in Europe and American multiculturalism to Brexit and the generation of Colorado political leaders — Pat Schroeder, Tim Wirth, Bill Armstrong and Gary Hart — of which he is proud to have been a part.
“He quotes journalists, columnists, Herman Wouk’s The Winds of War and Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire with equal ease.”
Once when we bumped into Lamm, he asked: “What book are you reading?” and told us what he was reading, and why it was important. “I spend a lot of time reading,” he said in the interview. “I am a public policy junkie.”
He said that Donald Trump was a reckless narcissist, but also that the Democrats were being pulled way too far to the left. He thought it good public policy to discuss expansion of Medicare and college tuition assistance, but also said, “they’re all holding out their hands for health care for illegal aliens,” which would “hurt us.”
Lamm was a phrasemaker.
America doesn’t listen very easily to “no.”
$20 trillion worth of debt — that statement is political malpractice.
Democracy is a crisis-activated system.
What did Dick Lamm himself regard as his legacy?
“My biggest legacy is the people I brought into government — Roy Romer [another three-term Colorado governor], Wellington Webb [a three-term Denver mayor], all kinds of other people. That’s what I’m proudest of. I had a knack of putting together great management teams and finding the best in people. And then having enough sense to listen to them. I wasn’t smart enough to run the state of Colorado. I had to have lots of help — wisdom is recognizing your limitations.”
Governor, we shall miss your soft touch, your keen intellect, your genuineness and your honesty.
Copyright © 2021 by the Intermountain Jewish News
