booth gardner - Washington Secretary of State

the best years of our lives ahead of us. … The future is not predetermined. It will become
what we make it.”
* * *
Gardner decided he again needed a chief of staff to help him hunker down for an
ambitious second term. Dick Davis came over from the Office of Financial Management,
and was succeeded by his No. 2, the capable Len McComb. Denny Heck, a former legislative
leader, became deputy chief of staff and the governor’s top
legislative strategist. At mid-year, Davis, who was 53, returned
to the private sector, having paid his public-service dues. Heck
became Gardner’s right-hand man for the rest of his tenure as
governor. A political prodigy, Heck was elected to the House
at 23. He served five terms, rising to majority leader before
resigning in 1984 to succeed Dean Foster as chief clerk. He lost to
Judith Billings in a photo-finish race for superintendent of public
instruction in 1988. Heck was intense, self-disciplined, confident,
confrontational, fast on his feet and extremely bright. Over the next three years, he says he
learned to be “more mellow.” Foster, a friend and admirer, chuckles at that: “Put it this way:
There were times when Denny was less intense.”
Determined to advance his legislative agenda, Booth sent Heck and Foster into
combat. Foster carried a first-aid kit and Heck a club. “It was my role to bust knuckles,” Heck
says. “I was the enforcer.” By April, resistant Republicans and even some Democrats were
sporting buttons that said “Blame Governor Heck.” Looking back, he says it all began at the
Inaugural Ball that January. “I was walking around in my tuxedo kind of full of excitement
that I was joining the Gardner Administration. I was talking with a lobbyist, who made what
I thought was a highly offensive joke ridiculing Governor Gardner as being a non-factor
legislatively. And I said, ‘We’re going to change that.’ ” It came across as hubris. Mark Twain
once observed that “we” should be reserved for kings and people with tape worms.
“I think that’s the start of Denny’s mellowing,” says Peter Callaghan. “Suddenly
he fully realizes he is not just speaking for Denny. It really upset him when the ‘Blame
Governor Heck’ buttons came out. He doesn’t want to be the focus of attention, for
obvious reasons: It gets you in trouble with the boss, who
doesn’t want some employee of his getting attention and
making it look like he’s the power behind the throne.”
Booth, who has a wry sense of humor, thought the
buttons were funny, but Heck was embarrassed – and the
wiser for it.
No one in the administration was amused by the
“Booth Buster” buttons that angry teachers, state employees
and other union members wore when they descended on the
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