The Gortons and Slades - Washington Secretary of State

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two men could be. They were both tough guys, though, each in their own
way, and fast on their feet. Dore had been a moot court champion at
Georgetown Law School, yet he kept ducking debates with Gorton, sending
his spouse or a law partner as a surrogate. “I think this debate thing
has been overused as a smoke screen by the candidates who are trailing.
I feel I’m leading,” Dore boasted with a nonchalant grin when a reporter
asked why he was often a no-show.
Gorton figured it would be close but never doubted he could win. He
began shedding his suit coat on the campaign trail, “hoping the shirtsleeves
would soften his strait-laced appearance,” especially since Dore
had the look of an old-time, baby-kissing politician. 2
A few weeKs BefoRe fiLing opened, 62–year-old Al Rosellini shocked
everyone—close friends, longtime supporters, the media and Democratic
frontrunner Martin Durkan—by announcing his candidacy for
governor. Three years earlier, the former two-term governor had been
trounced by an up-and-coming Republican, John Spellman, in a race for
King County executive. Most pundits and political pros believed that was
the end of a long and colorful political career. Al, however, was still
chaffed over his defeat by Evans in 1964. He was also angry and frustrated
over the “bloated bureaucracy” wrought by his successor. In a reversal
of form, a Democrat was calling a Republican a big spender. 3
Filing week also produced a surprise for Gorton and Dore—Dore especially.
John J. O’Connell, cleared two months earlier on the charges arising
from the Alioto fee-splitting case, filed for attorney general just before
the deadline. O’Connell never denied pocketing a $500,000 share—upwards
of $3 million in 2010 dollars—of Joe Alioto’s fees in the anti-trust
case against the electrical equipment manufacturers. He insisted he’d
done nothing illegal. Now he unloaded on Gorton, accusing his successor
of “using the power of his office to pursue narrow and partisan aims.”
O’Connell said he would neither engage in active fundraising nor wage a
“conventional” campaign in the primary. However, if the voters believed
in his good name and awarded him the nomination, he was prepared to
wage “a full-scale” general election campaign against Gorton. 4
On one thing at least, Dore and Gorton agreed: For O’Connell to have
taken that fat fee while he was still attorney general was flat wrong. Dore
said he was confident none of his supporters would jump ship to
O’Connell. “They all say he shouldn’t have been permitted to receive half
a million dollars, which is more than a lot of workmen make in their lifetime,
when he had a full-time paying job” as a public office-holder. For his