The anti-war, truck-driving veteran who made Iowa the most watched state in politics
Harold Hughes pushed for more transparency in presidential politics
The Iowa caucuses are now so entrenched in the political narrative leading to the White House that few people today question how a thinly populated Midwestern state known for corn and hogs earned its pivotal role in American presidential politics.
That answer leads to an alcoholic truck driver and college dropout from a tiny town in northeast Iowa named Harold Hughes.
Hughes was a towering football player — nicknamed “Pack” for pachyderm — who returned home to Iowa after World War II and began driving trucks for a living. Frustrated by the government’s regulations on trucking, he earned a post on the Iowa Commerce Commission in the late 1950s. Within a few years, he was gunning for the governor’s mansion as a Republican-turned-Democrat. He became governor in 1963, winning re-election twice and sparking progressive politics in a state where conservatives had prevailed for decades.
Hughes, known for his bone-crushing handshake and powerful speeches, abolished capital punishment in the state, founded the Iowa Civil Rights Commission and set up the community college system. A true “fire-breathing liberal” by today’s standards.
In 1968, with the Democratic party deeply divided over the Vietnam War, Minnesota anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy was gaining traction at the polls. But the party faithful, supportive of incumbent President Lyndon Johnson, outmaneuvered McCarthy in the run-up to the Democratic convention — an outcome that irked Hughes, who was staunchly anti-war. (Ultimately, Johnson announced he wouldn’t seek re-election and Vice President Hubert Humphrey got the nod.)
After the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, a frustrated Hughes joined an effort to abolish the existing rule under which a majority of a state’s delegation could force the entire delegation to support one candidate. He later pushed for a system in which candidates were awarded delegates’ votes based on the percentage of votes the candidate received.
Powerful states, including California, nixed the idea in favor of a winner-take-all approach. But Iowa adopted this system of proportional representation, which stoked more punditry, media scrutiny of— and public curiosity around — the state’s caucus.
In 1969 Hughes was elected senator, and after his victory supporters began pushing for a presidential run in 1972. Figuring that Hughes would benefit from an early lead, they held the caucus early in the year. (Another theory: The Democratic State Convention was scheduled for June, but after realizing there were no hotel rooms available in Des Moines, the party changed the caucus to allow enough time between it and the convention.)
Support for Hughes eventually waned, and he dropped out of the race to manage McCarthy’s campaign. (McCarthy lost to George McGovern.) In 1973, he abandoned politics altogether, deciding instead to work with religious groups and recovering alcoholics.
Recently, some Iowans have pushed for a memorial statue of Hughes in the state capital, acknowledging his outsized, but perhaps lesser known, role in Iowa politics.
When asked what a memorial might look like, Hughes’ daughter, Phyllis Hughes Ewing, remembered her dad’s love of fishing, particularly in the Des Moines River, and said she imagined a statue of him with a fishing pole in hand.
“His idea of heaven was to spend about four hours mumbling at his tackle box,” she said.
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