BOOTH WHO? - Washington State Digital Archives

that without hiking taxes. He also called for welfare reform – “workfare” – and endorsed
McDermott’s plan to provide basic health care coverage for the uninsured.
The lawmakers were facing the first session in six years where slashing would not
be the order of the hour. Although the economy was improving, estimates indicated there
wouldn’t be enough revenue to accomplish what Gardner wanted to do in both K-12 and
higher education. The question became not whether taxes would be needed but what
kind and how much. His staff presented several piecemeal options. He chose the most
ambitious and controversial route for two reasons: He did not want to give up on the most
costly part of his plan – boosting the caliber of teaching – and the change in tax structure
was a step toward full-scale reform.
Booth urged the legislators to not “spend 105 days making excuses” why they
couldn’t halt the state’s “slide toward mediocrity.” The Republicans were stoic, the
Democrats curiously subdued and the teachers loaded for bear. Not once was the
governor’s 1987 State of the State message interrupted by applause. “Even the anecdotes
were the same,” someone yawned. Looking back, Gardner says one of his biggest
frustrations was “this politics of perception and posturing.”
* * *
Booth told reporters he planned to call up General Barlow to help make the case
for tax reform. “Everywhere I go I talk about education, but there’s a quid pro quo there,”
the governor said. “The public has to decide if they want to make the investment, but
at the same time we have to show we can run our business as effectively as possible.”
He admitted that he didn’t bring Barlow on board when he first took office because “the
staff still has a certain apprehension about Greg – which isn’t all bad.” Nor all wrong, says
Dean Foster. “We made it pretty clear to Booth that we didn’t want Barlow to have an
office in the Capitol. I knew he would wreak havoc, so they found one for him down at GA
(General Administration) and his role was ill-defined. He was an exceptional guy with an
unbelievable amount of energy, and he ran right over the top to do things for Norton and
Booth,” the governor’s former chief of staff says. That style was not calculated, however, to
win friends for the governor and influence legislators.
During Booth’s eight years in Olympia, business interests always worried that those
damn tax-and-spend liberals had the upper hand in the governor’s office, Foster adds, so
he believes it’s possible that Barlow was dispatched by Clapp to make sure Booth wouldn’t
give away the farm. Adele Ferguson said that was precisely the case. “Well, here comes
Rambo,” she wrote. “But it may be too late.” Foster says he never saw the direct influence
of Norton Clapp on the governor, “but I knew it was there.” Booth says his stepfather’s
friends gave him more free advice than Clapp, although Norton did “suggest” it might be a
good idea to call up Barlow. “I just thanked him” for the advice, but “I didn’t feel I needed
it.” In other words, did he humor Clapp by bringing back Barlow for a while? “Yeah,”
Gardner nodded with a conspiratorial smile.
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