booth gardner - Washington Secretary of State

into his charisma. Former Seattle congressman Brock Adams drafted him as his honorary
campaign chairman in his bid to unseat U.S. Senator Slade Gorton. Surveying a new poll,
Shelby Scates marveled that Gardner was nearly as popular as Scoop Jackson. His numbers
were “far above anything ever registered by Gov. Dan Evans, a political scientist’s selection
as one of the 10 great governors of the 20 th Century.” Gardner’s sobering challenge, the
Post-Intelligencer pundit added, was the mounting evidence that the state was sliding
downhill economically. Personal incomes were dropping steadily behind the national
average and prospects for job development were anemic. Exhibit A was the Clark County
computer chip plant. It fizzled like a damp sparkler on the Fourth of July a year after the
hoopla when RCA and its Japanese partner, Sharp, called the whole thing off. “This isn’t
going to set us back a lick,” Gardner boasted.
Prodded by Dean Foster, his chief of staff, Booth stumped 40 legislative districts
and headlined 26 fundraisers. He even made a foray into Oregon to campaign for the
Democratic candidate for governor, Neil Goldschmidt. Gardner reveled in his popularity,
hugging pretty girls and making senior citizens giggle. He won cheers by urging a college
band to play “Louie Louie.” (“Babies are born with higher negatives than he’s got,”
Dotzauer quipped.)
The battle to maintain control of the State Senate in 1987-88 was trench warfare. “If
we don’t win this one, we’re incompetent,” Dan McDonald, the Republican floor leader, said
before the election. McDonald
was chagrinned and livid when
the Democrats eked out a 25-24
majority. With Gardner’s help,
Rick Bender scored a comefrom-behind
victory to keep his
seat in the pivotal 44 th District
in northern King County and
southern Snohomish County.
“He really took the gloves off,”
McDonald said, charging that
Gardner had besmirched the
integrity of Bender’s challenger,
Jeanine Long, who had vacated
her seat in the House to run for the Senate. “He certainly demonstrated that it’s ‘no more
Mr. Nice Guy,’ ” McDonald said. Larsen devoted his Seattle Times column to a post-mortem
of the bitter contest, observing that to Republicans Gardner had now become “a grinning,
vacuous handshaker who was willing to involve the state’s highest office in some slightly
deceitful political tactics and who, as a result, now carries some indelible mud on his
immaculate image.”
Booth kibitzes with Thriftway checker Joe Short, right, as he campaigns in Gig
Harbor in 1986 for Democratic legislative candidate Ron Meyers, center. Bruce
Larson © The News Tribune (Tacoma, WA) 1986 Reprinted with permission.
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