Alan Simpson Interview (page: 5 / 9) Statesman and Advocate	Print Interview

What changed things for you? When did you figure out what you wanted to do with your life?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Alan Simpson: I went to Cranbrook, that was an eye opener. There was the art of Carl Milles all over the place, and the architecture of Saarinen and I thought, "What is this stuff?" And I'd begun to take an interest in Shakespeare, because it was so powerful. Macbeth and Hamlet, Othello -- no wonder it's been around for 400-plus years, because it's so powerful. It's about greed and lust and hate, jealousy and murder, and vanity and love. So I suppose that Cranbrook was a settling, and then playing football at the university, when I really wasn't that good, but I just reached down, got something deep out of there and I said, "I'm going to make this team." And I did. Basketball was just fun. I was drinking beer and was the tenth guy on the squad. Putting them all to bed at night, and then going drinking beer from Boise, Idaho to Oklahoma City, to Corvallis, Oregon. And I enjoyed that, in a way. But football, I made the first string on defense, and was elected outstanding lineman in a game at Rice Stadium against Houston, and came home and quit. Went to law school. Said, "I proved that, I've done that." And that was really something, because I wasn't physically able to do that. But I had something down inside -- "I'm going to do that." And I did. And those are things -- you don't where it comes from, but it came.

[ Key to Success ] Perseverance

Was there a defining moment?

Alan Simpson: I've never had one of those things where they say, "Oh, Lord! I woke up one morning, this great light came and fairies danced and the earth cracked and the veil of the heavens was rent asunder." I was in love. I married a woman who's a very attractive woman, and that was the defining moment. I don't remember any cataclysmic activity, but I remember I had the hots for her and still do. Our relationship is formed on the firm bedrock of eternal lust. No, it is wonderful to have people you love and love them in many ways. I always kissed my old man goodnight. I kissed my sons. I kissed my daughter. I hug them. Because if I couldn't do that, you could just have a picture of them over on the mantel and burn incense while they were alive and never have intimacy. Intimacy is a lot different than sex. What people lack in the world is intimacy. Just hold me. Just snuggle up and hold me, don't do anything right now. But no, people say, "I don't want to be touched." Or "I'm going to lose something if I do that." And that's unfortunate.

There are people who used to love people and possess things. Now we love things and try to possess people. Jealousy. I tell them to go watch Othello one more time, or read it. The wonder of it all is feelings, and responding to your feelings of love, and physical contact. But when you get into that, they say, "Oh no, wait! Where is this leading?" and I'm not leading it anywhere. I'm just saying it's a better way to live than being one of the dead unkilled, or living in a sterile kind of relationship. So whether I see Norm Mineta, and hug him and kiss him and we probably get teary -- or my sons, or my daughter, or my wife, or my brother -- it's a hell of a lot better way to live than all closed down with all the fence and the fissures all closed.

A lot of people do that in life. They're often the people that are the most shy, or the people who are the most obnoxious, because they don't want to be hurt again. They say, "I'm going to hurt you first." So they look aloof, and they look arrogant. They're not. They're wonderful and it just takes a little while to open that up. That's an interesting part of it all for me. They let me do things. They "gave me my head," that's the horse term. I was in the U.S. Senate and they let me do immigration, when it didn't make any sense out here. They let me do other stuff. They gave me my head. They put the rein loose on my neck and I had a wonderful adventure. They were great. But I was always accessible to them.

At some point you made a decision for public service and public office. How'd that come about?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Alan Simpson: Pop. I watched him as governor. Watched my mother as the first lady of Wyoming. She wasn't the first lady, she was the ultimate lady. She was raised in Chicago by this coal miner father who made a ton of money, and she had servants. She was just grand. She had the Governor's Mansion, beautiful. And a beautiful home, and she knew taste, and she played the piano and the mandolin and the organ. But she'd never been to college. That always -- but who cared? God, she was something else. So I watched that. Then they went to Washington and it never changed them at all. And I thought, "Well, heaven's sakes, you can do that and not change." So Ann and I just figured, let's do it. And Ann said, "What do we do if we lose?" And I said, "I don't know. Something else." I practiced law for 18 years. I was getting tired of that. I did this for 18 years. And I just didn't want to do it anymore, and now here I am, speaking all over the U.S., and the Director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard, and teaching 92 graduate students a course. Who would believe it? Certainly not my old professor. I think it would be phantasmagoria. So there I am, and it's great fun.

Whether you were the city attorney in Cody, or serving in the state legislature, or as a senator in Washington, what was motivating you? What did you want to do?

Alan Simpson: I loved the adulation that goes with that.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I thought if I could end up being a senator without having to run for it, that might be a nice thing to go to the grave with. But you have to run for it. You can't end up and say, "Well, that was Senator Simpson. He never ran but we call him senator." And it didn't matter what they called me. I've been called everything. But the motivation was I got into the state legislature and I learned that if I worked hard, did my research, that I could actually create a bill. I had no staff, and I wasn't back in the law practice, I was in Cheyenne. So I rewrote the podiatry laws of the State of Wyoming because some gal said, "I can't even get treated by a podiatrist." So I wrote, rewrote, that took some research. I rewrote the implied consent law, rewrote land use planning. It was called "the grand commie plot!"

[ Key to Success ] Preparation

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Any time that somebody would come up to me and say, "I don't think that you want to touch this issue because it will destroy you politically," I'd say "Where is it?" and then I'd get into it, and it happened in the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Senate. Anything connected with emotion, fear, guilt or racism, I wanted to play in. So I played in immigration, Clean Air Act, veterans' issues, judicial nominations. I've been through it all. And high-level nuclear waste. And it was wonderful, because I would say, "I don't want to hear you babble. I don't want to hear the BS. Everybody's entitled to their own opinion, but nobody's entitled to their own facts. And then you run out of facts and you go to emotion, fear, guilt or racism. But you ain't taking me with you, and if you want to stay and debate, I'm going to whip your ass." Which I did on more than one occasion, and got mine whipped, too.

[ Key to Success ] Courage

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I loved legislating. So you have to pick what you like. I couldn't be a governor, couldn't be a president. Wouldn't be worth a whit. I'm not an administrator. I loved the hearings. I didn't love them, but I mean you learn from the hearings. And I did the floor management of big bills and I worked with guys on the other side of the aisle who didn't have my philosophy at all. Been there two years and my three ranking members are Ted Kennedy, Al Cranston and Gary Hart. I went to them, I said, "Look, you're all three running for president. I'm not going to hinder your quest, but don't you use this subcommittee for your quest." We made that, and the unfortunate thing in Washington now is people think the word "compromise" means wimp, that you were a wimp. And that's sick. Because if you don't learn how to compromise an issue without compromising yourself, you can't legislate. It won't happen.

[ Key to Success ] Passion

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