booth gardner - Washington Secretary of State

Critics said the press was overly smitten with the governor. A backlash was
predictable. It’s the natural order of things. No self-respecting reporter wants to be seen
as a lapdog rather than a watchdog. When the new wore off and Gardner stumbled, the
media let him have it. Gardner was
actually less thin skinned than most
imagined, but when Dick Larsen dubbed
him “Prince Faintheart” it pinched
a sciatic nerve. “It was devastating
to Booth,” Dean Foster says. “Booth
thought that he and Dick were friends
… and friends don’t do that to friends.”
The Seattle Times writer had been
granted exclusive access to some of
Gardner’s most important strategy
sessions, a move that backfired when
he showed the colors by biting the hand
that fed him. Dick Milne, Kneeland’s
successor, remembers arriving for a Saturday morning meeting on tax reform “and Dick
Larsen is sitting there. I was the press secretary and I wasn’t even told. I pulled someone
aside and said, ‘This is not good – not only because of what he’s going to do with that
potential ammunition that nobody else has, but what am I going to tell Walter Hatch and
all those other people? ‘I was dead.’ The rest of the press corps was in my face.”
* * *
Still, Booth was so likable that state Sen. Barney Goltz of Bellingham christened
him “The Cabbage Patch Governor,” the cuddly cloth dolls being the toy sensation of the
season. Representative Grimm, pointing to the governor’s rapport with children, said he
was more like Mr. Rogers. Ken Nuckolls, a veteran political operative said, “He’s a nice
guy, but nice guys finish last. I’m not sure he can get mean.” Sam Hunt, chairman of the
Thurston County Democrats, said, “I think the biggest question people have is ‘Where are
we going?’ There are all these issues out there. What is going to happen? What does he
want to happen?”
When it comes to being governor, “style is probably at least equal to substance,”
said Mark Brown, the lobbyist for the Washington Federation of State Employees. “He
has a winning style. He has an air of confidence, but not arrogance. It’s not a question of
getting along. Booth Gardner genuinely cares about people. When he says ‘I’m only as
good as my fellow state employees,’ he means it.”
He also meant it when he said he would promote diversity. On Christmas Eve 1985
Gardner issued an executive order banning discrimination against gays and lesbians in
state employment. Gay rights activists called it a courageous step forward for the State
Booth greets Cub Scout Billy Joe Thomas and his parents. Wayne
Zimmerman ©The News Tribune (Tacoma, WA) 1985 Reprinted with
permission.
103