Lamm touts toughness, passion as qualifications

Chris Barge, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 24, 2006 at midnight

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When she was 9 years old, Peggy Lamm asked her dentist to drill out her cavities without using Novocain.

Looking back on that day, Lamm realizes it was an unnecessarily brutal request. But the 55-year-old single mother wonders whether it shows she knew at a young age that she would need to be tough to face life's challenges.

"Maybe it made me have the spine and guts that are represented by my life's work," she said. "I think it is that spine and guts that we do need in Washington."

"Spine and guts" are words the Democrat uses often in her stump speeches as she campaigns for the 7th Congressional District seat. The biggest challenge ahead of her now is getting past her better-funded opponent, Ed Perlmutter, as well as Herb Rubenstein in the Aug. 8 Democratic primary.

By all traditional measures, she's in for an uphill battle against Perlmutter, who is his party's choice and who holds the lion's share of endorsements.

On the other hand, her last name resonates with Democrats, many of whom look fondly on the contributions of former Gov. Dick Lamm and his wife Dottie.

Peggy Lamm was married to Tom Lamm, Dick's brother. They have a son together, Danny, who is heading to the University of Colorado in the fall. The couple was divorced two years ago.

But beyond name recognition, Peggy Lamm has determination, spunk and an unblinking sense of who she is and what she wants to accomplish, she and her supporters say.

Lamm says she's comfortable as an outsider in this race because she has done some of her best work from the fringes.

"I'm proud to not be the one who's beholden to these powerful special interests," she said. "I think I am exactly what we need in terms of new leadership in Washington."

Born Margaret Grandin, Lamm was the third of her parent's four children. The family lived in Jamestown, N.Y., where her father owned the DH Grandin Milling Co.

Her father died tragically after slipping on ice and falling into some mill machinery. And because her mother had become an invalid after a surgeon removed a benign tumor from her brain, Lamm, her mother and her siblings moved to Wellington, Kan., southwest of Wichita, to live nearer to family.

Lamm's brother, Tom Grandin, said that while growing up, his sister loved high school dances and played French horn in the marching band.

But he never saw politics in his little sister's future. "She was a pretty typical Midwest American lady," he said.

She taught high school English and journalism after graduating from Kansas State Teacher's College in Emporia.

She moved to Colorado in 1976 and sold radio advertising. She later became marketing director for Colorado Ski Country and then executive director of the Boulder Convention and Visitor's Bureau.

She and Tom Lamm married. They had their only child in 1988.

The couple got a letter one day from Tom Grandin, who was serving in the 82nd Airborne Division, helping kick Manuel Noriega out of Panama. Grandin wrote that he feared for his life because he was equipped with armor left over from the Vietnam War. The Lamms immediately mailed him a reinforced Kevlar flak jacket.

"She cares about the military and her country and especially me," Grandin said.

Lamm soon threw her hat into the political ring, nearly picking off conservative Republican state Rep. Drew Clark as a write-in candidate in Boulder's House District 13 in 1992.

Convinced that Clark's politics were not in line with Boulder's more liberal voters, she got on the ballot and beat him in the next election.

"Peggy has always said that if you care about the country, if you are worried about what's going on, you've got to do something," said Carol Byerly, who helped Lamm in her statehouse campaign.

When her son got older, she took a job leading Bighorn Action, the political lobbying arm of the Bighorn Center for Public Policy.

There, she helped get a law passed that blocked telemarketers from calling those who registered with a no-call list.

"It was a piece of consumer advocacy that all Coloradans, virtually, wanted, and it wasn't an easy sell because of the business interests who were against it," said Mary Wickersham, who worked as a policy analyst at Bighorn with Lamm.

If chosen by Democrats in the primary to face O'Donnell in the general election, Lamm will have to convince voters that being a lobbyist isn't a bad thing, when you advocate what you care about.

Peggy Lamm

Age: 55

Born: Jamestown, N.Y.

Family: Divorced with one son

Education:

• Bachelor's degree, Kansas State Teacher's College, 1973

Experience:

• Colorado state representative, 1995-1996, representing House District 13 in the Boulder area

• Lobbyist, Big Horn Action

• Helped pass Colorado's "Telemarketing No Call List" legislation

• Chair, Colorado Commission on Higher Education

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