Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper would be the first to concede that his name is unusual. In fact, quite unusual, and memorable for that reason. One might even say it brings some, jokeable moments. But there was another politician by the name of Hickenlooper back in the day, Bourke Blakemore Hickenlooper of Iowa. He was Iowa’s governor in the 1940’s, but was more prominent on the national scene, serving his state as a U.S. Senator, a 24 year tenure that ended in 1968 when the younger Hick was still in high school.
Alan Wentworth, a native Iowan who settled in Colorado, said he “would bet you dollars to doughnuts that you go back and do some tying together that (John) is related to Bourke.” They are! It’s not clear they ever met.
Beyond that, the differences were stark, and besides the fact that both men served as their respective state’s Governors who liked to be called “Hick,” the parallels were as wide as the Iowa cornfields and as miles high as the Rockies.
Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper (photo from Think Progress)
Bourke Hickenlooper, a Republican, grew up an only child of a farming family in a rural town in the southwestern corner of the state called Blockton. John, a Democrat, was reared on the Main Line, a well-known Philly suburb. He’d lose his father at age seven, and eventually take his urban upbringing west. Bourke was an attorney, John an English major who would become a geologist and restaurateur on the way to public service.
The differing backgrounds undoubtedly produced philosophical differences, as best one can extrapolate for a cosmopolitan Governor vs. a Senator whose hey-day was more than five decades ago.
John was among the first Governors to okay the expansion of Medicaid. Bourke actually voted against the creation of Medicare in 1965. In fact, his reasoning for opposing it’s creation at a time when it had widespread bipartisan support would sound eerily similar to opponents of health care reform more than four decades later, at a time when it’s bipartisan support was non-existent. “This is a complicated system of state medicine going directly into socialism,” he said “In the long run, it may well have an adverse effect on the quality of American medicine.”
Perhaps appropriately for a Senator from the birthplace of Herbert Hoover, Hickenlooper voted against much of the “Great Society,” concerned about it’s cost. But he was opposing earlier domestic initiatives well before that. One example in particular is a 1950’s bill that would’ve given grants to states with high unemployment and legislation that would’ve increased the number of postal employees eligible for benefits, to name a few. He did however, keep a watch on Iowa’s farmers.
Bourke Hickenlooper (1896-1971) Photo from Wiki
John, as Denver’s Mayor and now Governor, has aligned himself solidly with society causes. He shepherded a light rail line in the city and financed a large bond with property tax increases. Statewide, his chief crusades at this point seem to be promoting a homeless initiative involving the conversion of an old, rural prison site, which has met resistance even among fellow Democrats. He wants to see money toward a child abuse prevention system, an old. And he’s created a “bottom-up” proposals for ordinary citizens to make suggestions to improve government.
But a Hickenlooper Governorship has also not meant an automatic liberal utopia for Colorado. Much to the consternation of Democrats, he is conflicted about a death penalty repeal and was outright opposed to the legalization of marijuana. However, once voters approved it in a November referendum, Hickenlooper made it a point to sign the statute codifying it, even though he was not required to.
John also signed civil unions into law in Colorado. Bourke would oppose the Civil Rights legislation of the 1960’s arguing that it would lead to an over-zealous bureaucracy “snooping into everyday lives.”
And while initially ambivalent to more gun control measures. the Aurora shootings have made Hickenlooper a staunch advocate. Declaring that “the time is right” to discuss more gun control, he proudly signed measures into law limiting magazines. He tried to shun regional disputes, saying, this shouldn’t be about urban vs.rural. We are one state.” While Bourke did support the Gun Control Act of 1968, he did not ardently push gun control.
Bourke backed his colleague Joe McCarthy when it came to censure. Naively but perhaps wishfully, he sought to assure critics that McCarthyism would not permanently splinter the party saying, “in my judgement, those who claim that the McCarthy censure has created a permanent breach in the Republican Party are the ones who are actively hoping for such a breach. But it’s not going to occur.”
As a Senator, Bourke’s major impact was on defense and foreign affairs. Early in his career, he backed Truman on NATO and the Marshall Plan and shunned isolationist rhetoric. He was a voracious proponent of atomic energy, having sat on the Joint Committee on the Atomic Energy and helped produce the Cole-Hickenlooper Atomic Energy Act which allowed localities to produce nuclear power. He backed the Vietnam War but noted early on the lack of a “vigorous, definitive policy,” could be detrimental. But Johnson still sent him on a mission to monitor elections in South Vietnam. As a member of the Tydings Committee, which investigated the loyalty of State Department officials, Hickenlooper considered the investigation incomplete and refused to sign the report. By the end of his Senate tenure, Hickenlooper was ranking member on Foreign Affairs.
He may have been most famous for the Hickenlooper Amendment, which sought to ban aid to nations that expropriated U.S. property, in response to the Cubans seizing of interests in South America.. But the Kennedy administration opposed it and it was defeated.
What the two Hick’s do share is immense popularity in their respective states. Bourke Hickenlooper carried every county in his 1942 election for Governor. Many warned him his name would be a liability, but he would be the first one to joke about it. Besides, many Iowans already knew him as the sitting Lieutenant Governor.
The New Yorker magazine made light of his last name in apoem. It read Hickenlooper had been
“introduced as Lickenhooper, Hoopenlicker, Hoppinlooker,
Doopenhoofer – names that the governor would acknowledge with a grin and then launch into his speech for the day.”
Opponents also learned that making hey could be difficult. Paul Boller, in Congressional Anecdotes, wrote a tale of Hickenlooper’s 1944 campaign for the Senate. His opponent, Al Loveland asked an old man for a vote, only to be told he was for Hick, “a prayin’, God-fearing man.” Asked to explain, the man told of the airplane going down “in the Pacific and a bunch of ’em was in the raft with him. He got out the bible and read to ’em and prayed.” Loveless replied, “man, that was Eddie Rickenbacker,” to which the voter replied, “I don’t care what you call him..Hickenbacker, Rickenbacker. I tell you, he’s a prayin’, God-fearin’ man, and I’m fer him.” Boller closes the tale by saying Loveland complained to friends, “What can you do with a handicap like that?”
Similarly, John Hickenlooper topped a 15 person field for Mayor of Denver and won a 2nd term with 87%. He won his Governor’s chair after the GOP imploded.
As far as John following Bourke to the Senate. Not likely. At least not in the near future. When Ken Salazar vacated his seat to take over the Interior Department, Hickenlooper made known his interest, only to see the appointment go to his one-time Chief of Staff, Michael Bennet. Hickenlooper faces re-election next year but does not seem to face any serious obstacles.
Early in his career, Hickenlooper was known as one of Tom Dewey’s “bright young men,” which caught the attention of, among other things, the St. Louis Star-Times, commented on the “rapidly rising political star of 48-year-old, energetic Bourke B. Hickenlooper.” The phrase “running for President and Bourke Hickenlooper would not have appeared in the same sentence. John’s name has come up but he’s been doing very little to stoke the waters (national campaign apparatus, stumping for others). He must first concentrate on his re-election campaign.
Bourke Hickenlooper’s style and rhetoric may not be different from Chuck Grassley, who now holds his Senate seat (along with H.R. Gross whom I’ve written about before).
The line about the bureaucracy and Medicare could be Grassley fast forwarded four decades on health care reform. Grassley, aside from Sarah Palin, was among those most identified with the pulling the plug on Grandma line. Beyond that, both share a stoic, consummate skeptic, curmudgeon, Iowa stubborn, what’s the cost attitude that Grassley and Jim Nussle have been known to bring up, even on mundane matters. But Grassley enjoys traveling around Iowa talking with folks and Hick did as well.
No one would ever accuse John Hickenlooper of being a rah-rah, grand poohbah, life of the party like figure but he is outgoing with a cerebral, understated charisma and sense of humor carries him well in settings both urban and rural.
One trait both Hickenlooper’s share: honesty. Bourke was heralded for it and John once cited his Quaker upbringing, “My great-grandparents were Quakers and I tried to take that ethic into business. Quaker honesty, Quaker mindfulness, that effort to build community across differences.”
Bourke left the Senate at 72 in 1968 and died suddenly two years later. John,60, continues to have phenomenal ratings in Colorado, and seems likely to persevere in one capacity or another as long as he wishes.