booth gardner - Washington Secretary of State

Chapter 13: “Where are we going?”
Thanks to Jim Kneeland’s genius at staging photo-ops, Booth was a familiar face
on the nightly news and front pages – standing in a boat on the polluted Duwamish River,
surveying the site of a new electronics plant in Clark County, helping pick up litter near
Ocean Shores. (Rest assured
that Kneeland made sure
there actually was litter.)
The Wall Street Journal and
Business Week hailed “a
bright new face in American
politics.” Gardner artfully
used the news media to
boost his popularity. One
day he handed out bumper
strips that said “Support
the 1 st Amendment – KISS A
REPORTER.” The AP’s David
Ammons observed that “Before he was elected, he was an uptight, scared little guy. …
He’s just blossomed, both as a governor and in his relationship with the press.” The GOP
leader in the House, Sim Wilson, said it was all smoke and mirrors. “Who the heck is the
governor,” Wilson scoffed, “Jim Kneeland or Booth Gardner? I’d give him an A for PR and a
C-minus for substance.”
After Dixy Lee Ray, who was in a perpetual snit and named the pigs on her Fox
Island farm after her least favorite reporters, and their bouts with Spellman’s testy press
secretary, the reporters enjoyed their ready access to Gardner. Joshing punctuated many of
his press conferences. They kidded him about his jargon, goading him to drop a quarter in a
jar every time he lapsed into MBA-speak. He knew them all by their first names and asked
about their spouses and children. He disarmed everyone with his repertoire of sure-fire
stories, many of them self-deprecating, such as the time he jogged home from the Olympia
YMCA after a vigorous workout with barbells. “The blood was pumping and the adrenalin
flowing and I was really feeling full of myself,” he says. “Then I hopped into the shower,
which was even more invigorating. As I exited the shower, Jean walks in and I gave her
one of these,” he says, flexing his biceps like Charles Atlas. “I said, ‘What do you think the
people of the state would say if they could see me now?’ And she said, ‘I think the people
would say that I must have married you for your money.’ ”
“Everybody is used as a prop by him. He could make a living as a stand-up comedian,”
Bob Partlow of The Olympian said early in 1986. “It’s hard not to be charmed by the guy.”
To promote “Motorcycle Awareness Week,” Booth and Mary Faulk, then director
of licensing, donned Harley Davidson leather jackets.
Photo courtesy Mary Faulk Riveland.
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