booth gardner - Washington Secretary of State

Booth said she was going there to unravel a thicket of litigation and replace
bureaucratic nincompoopery with common sense. “When Chris was working on the
Comparable Worth case, she really impressed me with her ability to analyze issues,”
Gardner says. A national search for a new director at Ecology produced “some attractive
candidates. But one night I thought to myself, ‘I think Chris can do the job. I’m going to
appoint her.’ ” The next morning, when he revealed his decision to his staff, “all hell broke
loose – I mean there was pandemonium. Everybody said, ‘No, you can’t do that. She has no
profile. People in state government don’t know who she is.’ ”
Gardner would not be dissuaded. Gregoire was stunned, almost reduced to
stammering: “Gosh, Booth, you know, I’m flattered but I’m a senior assistant attorney
general. I’m a lawyer and that job just doesn’t make sense to me. Why would you want me
to do that?”
“Because they’ve got nothing but lawsuits. We’re not making any progress.”
“Well, I can help you from over here at the AG’s office. I don’t have a big track
record as the world’s greatest environmentalist.”
“So, are you telling me no?”
“Well, let me think about it.’”
Gregoire called back the next day to turn it down, saying, “Booth, I am so flattered.
Maybe someday. I’ll help you over here. But I can’t be the director.’ ”
A week later he called back and invited her to a clandestine lunch at the Governor’s
Mansion. “He’s a very persuasive guy,” says Gregoire, shaking her head at the memory of
the day in 1988 when her life began to accelerate beyond her wildest imagination. She
went on to win bipartisan praise for the job she did at Ecology, then became attorney
general and, in 2004, the state’s second female governor.
“Many people say that if I hadn’t spotted her she wouldn’t have been governor. I
have good instincts for good people,” Booth says with pride.
“In the years since he called me that day (in 1988), some of the best advice he’s
given me is to ‘go by your gut,’ ” Gregoire says. “That time, he went by his gut, when too
often he did not. He tells me he can’t recall an occasion where he went with his gut and
failed. He wished he’d done it more.”
* * *
Because Booth had such a huge lead, a ton of money and public affection that
Dick Larsen described as ranking “somewhere between Donald Duck and fresh-baked
bread,” the media redoubled its efforts to hold his feet to the fire. He supplied the kindling.
There was a guffaw fest when the campaign made the patently preposterous boast that
Gardner’s first-term achievements were in the same league with Governor Mike Dukakis’
celebrated “Massachusetts Miracle.” The governor grew cranky and his one-liners fell
flat. In Spokane, KHQ-TV reporter Hugh Imhof asked the governor about his flip-flop on a
budget item boosting a controversial technology center in the city. Playing to a crowd of
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