booth gardner - Washington Secretary of State

supporters, Gardner said, “I think you’ve got your descriptive nouns all backwards. And
that’s why you’re a reporter and I’m governor.” That did it. Next, in a speech in Vancouver,
B.C., he made an arrogant wisecrack about the caliber of higher education in British
Columbia vs. Washington state: “you can take a UBC diploma, frame it and stick it in your
windshield and we’d let you stay in handicapped parking.”
“He thought that was funny,” marvels Pete Callaghan, who wrote a column about
the governor’s attitude problem. Booth seemed bored and cynical, the Tacoma reporter
said, and he deserved to get smacked around. It was “quit acting like you’re giving
everybody the service of your time.”
May of 1988 was a month Gardner wishes he couldn’t remember. Was he really
temperamentally cut out to be governor? “There’ve been periods when I’ve questioned
that myself,” he admitted.
* * *
Mike Murphy, a lanky Grays Harbor County commissioner, was one of the earliest
members of Booth’s kitchen cabinet. Murphy had a boyish smile, the common touch
and political smarts learned at the knee of his father, C. “Tab” Murphy, one of the most
popular politicians in the history of the Harbor area. Mike had been state president of the
Jaycees, a congressional aide and a leader in the Washington Association of Counties. He
was a consensus-builder, respected by businessmen and environmentalists, Indians and
sportsmen. He’d fished the fabled Humptulips River, hunted from Matlock to Montana and
hiked the Olympics.
Having won the right to appoint the director of the new Wildlife Department,
Gardner urged Murphy to apply for the job. Murphy’s emotions were deeply mixed. “It’s
the one job in the world I’d have done for free,” he says. Still, he felt duty bound to suggest
that the appointment might prompt accusations of cronyism that could wound Gardner’s
bid for re-election. Booth called back a few days later and said not to worry – he’d be
perfect for the job. Murphy quickly amassed endorsement letters from sportsmen’s groups,
legislators, tribal leaders and influential businessmen.
After a nationwide search by a well-known headhunter, Ted Ford Webb, the field
was narrowed to Murphy, Curt Smitch, a Gardner staffer who handled natural resource
issues, and two game directors from other states. Next came a series of interviews with a
selection committee that included Dick Thompson, Mary Faulk, Dick Davis and Webb.
“Are you going to be home Saturday morning?” Booth called his friend to ask.
“Sure,” said Murphy, who could tell by the governor’s tone “that he wasn’t driving to Elma
to tell me I was going to be appointed.”
Booth drove through the Black Hills by himself, got lost and found a sheriff’s deputy
to give him directions to Murphy’s place. They sat down in the living room. “He told me he
was giving the job to Smitch. He said he was sorry he’d put me through all that. I appreciated
that he came to tell me in person, but that didn’t make me any less disappointed.”
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