Elder statesman, indeed: 98-year-old former Iowa AG caucuses in Waterloo
Forrmer prosecutor, undaunted by subzero cold, argues Asa Hutchinson's case to fellow Republicans
WATERLOO — Caucus day was cold enough to curl your hair.
That didn’t faze a guy who’s gone by that moniker since high school.
Curly’s his name, Caucus is his game. And if you think a little subzero weather and two feet of snow in a week is going keep Evan “Curly” Hultman away, you’ve got another think coming.
The 98-year-old former Iowa attorney general and 1964 Republican Iowa gubernatorial nominee attended not only attended his precinct caucus at Waterloo Columbus Catholic High School, he turned out to support a decided underdog in the primary field, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
On a day when the mercury couldn’t even creep above zero at mid afternoon, and a wind chill warning in place until midday Tuesday, Hultman was asked, why turn out on a night like this?
One reason, the retired U.S. Army Reserve major general said:
Duty.
”I just feel it’s important that our voice be heard,” Hultman said.
“Even though I know my candidate’s much, much lower, I think he’s the most qualified,” he said of Hutchinson, who he’s known personally since they both served as U.S. district attorneys in the 1980s during President Ronald Reagan’s administration.
“Kind of a bear,” he admitted about the weather. But he remembered a worse night in 2008 when Black Hawk County Republicans held all their caucuses under one roof at Waterloo’s Central Middle School. The packed parking lot was a sheet of ice.
In fact, that year a pregnant caucus goer’s water broke and party officials pleaded for attendees to move their vehicles so an ambulance could get up to the door.
Hultman has been involved in GOP politics practically since graduating from the University of Iowa law school following World War II service in the Pacific. In fact prior to the war, while running track at the Drake Relays for Waterloo East High School, he was interviewed by WHO radio sports director Ronald “Dutch” Reagan — for whom he would campaign and serve under decades later.
He also pushed for George H.W. Bush to be Reagan’s running mate in 1980. At the county GOP caucus in 2004, he fired up the crowd with a speech for incumbent President George W. Bush.
True to form, Hultman, dressed for the elements and looking more like a hunter than a veteran politician, nonetheless had his stump speech for his old prosecutorial colleague Hutchinson ready to go.
“My guy’s a 1 percenter, but he knows that and that’s okay,” he said, referring to Hutchinson’s low polling numbers. But he pressed his case.
“He’s been a U.S. attorney, he’s been the head of a federal agency (U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration), he’s served in the Congress of the United States and of course he was a governor of a state. I don’t think anybody in this group (of candidates) meets those qualifications. And he did a real fine job on all instances.”
Hultman was as undaunted by the political odds inside as he was by the weather outside. He swayed no one to his candidate. When the straw poll was tallied, he was a minority of one. But he received congratulatory remarks from those in attendance.
With his immediate family attending their own caucuses in different locales, Hultman struggled to find transportation Monday — until an enterprising journalist sensing a good feature story offered to be his wheels for the evening.
Personally, Hultman said, he’s disappointed more people don’t participate — with maybe a fifth of Iowa’s 700,000-plus registered Republicans participating. Another 700,000-plus voters aren’t registered with a party and there are about 630,000 registered Democrats.
”I feel strongly about each of us doing our duty in the process, and that’s why I want to be there,” he said.
Hultman also is a former head of the Reserve Officers Association of the United States and honorary chairman for life of a NATO-affiliated reserve officers organization. A native of the Albia area, he served as attorney general 1961-65 and as U.S. district attorney during President Richard Nixon’s administration as well as under Reagan. And, he noted, he attended his first political event as a boy with his grandmother more than 90 years ago — for the re-election of a fellow Iowan, President Herbert Hoover.
Pat Kinney is a freelance writer and former longtime news staffer with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier and, prior to that, several years at the Ames Tribune. He is currently an oral historian with the Grout Museum District in Waterloo. His “View from the Cedar Valley” column is part of “Iowa Writers Collaborative,” a collection of news and opinion writers from around the state who previously and currently work with a host of Iowa newspapers, news organizations and other publications. Click on their links below to sample their work.
The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative
Good show of citizenship here — by both Curly Hultman and Pat Kinney. And a good story, too!
Fun story!