Considered a shoo-in for a third Senate term, Campbell stunned supporters when he dropped out of the race in 2004 after a health scare.
“I thought it was a heart attack. It wasn’t,” said Campbell. “But when I was lying on that table in the hospital looking up at all those doctors’ faces, I decided then, ‘Do I really need to do this six more years after I’ve been gone so much from home?’ I have two children I didn’t get to see grow up, quite frankly.”
He retired to focus on the Native American jewelry that helped make him wealthy and was put on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian. He also worked on a line of outdoor gear with a California-based company, Kiva Designs, and became a senior policy adviser with the powerhouse law firm of Holland & Knight in Washington.
Campbell founded Ben Nighthorse Consultants which focused on federal policy, including Native American affairs and natural resources. The former senator also drove the Capitol Christmas Tree across the country to Washington, D.C., on several occasions.
“He was truly one of a kind, and I am thinking of his family in the wake of his loss,” said Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette on X.
An accidental politician
In 1982, he was planning to deliver his jewelry to California, but bad weather grounded his plane. He was killing time in the southern Colorado city of Durango when he went to a county Democratic meeting and wound up giving a speech for a friend running for sheriff.
Democrats were looking for someone to challenge a GOP legislative candidate and sounded out Campbell during the meeting. “Like a fish, I was hooked,” he said.
His opponent, Don Whalen, was a popular former college president who “looked like he was out of a Brooks Brothers catalog,” Campbell recalled. “I don’t think anybody gave me any kind of a chance. … I just think I expended a whole lot of energy to prove them wrong.”
Campbell hit the streets, ripping town maps out of the Yellow Pages and walking door to door to talk with people. He recalled leaving a note at a house in Cortez where no one was home when he heard a car roar into the driveway, gravel flying and brakes squealing.
The driver jumped out, tire iron in hand, and screamed that Campbell couldn’t have his furniture. “Aren’t you the repossession company?” the man asked.
“And I said, ‘No man, I’m just running for office.’ We got to talking, and I think the guy voted for me.”
