The Gortons and Slades - Washington Secretary of State

236 sLAde goRton: A hALf centuRy in poLitics
McgAvicK LooKed youngeR thAn 30. In campaign years, though, he
was an old pro, having started at 8, doorbelling with his dad in Seattle’s
Wallingford neighborhood. From his post at the pro-business Washington
Roundtable he’d watched Gorton’s 1986 campaign from the sidelines
with escalating frustration. Now he had a chance to run the show and
help his mentor return to the Senate.
Gorton unhesitatingly placed his fate in McGavick’s hands. “It’s been
said that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client,” Gorton
said, ruminating on the mistakes he’d made in the last campaign. 15 “I
didn’t mind losing control of the Senate in 1986 if we could get rid of him,
he was so arrogant,” said Eddie Mahe, a political consultant from New
York. 16 One of Gorton’s favorite writers, Arnold Toynbee, explored patterns
of “departure and return,” concluding that a defeat, followed by a
second chance, can be transformative. Creative personalities often emerge
“with new abilities and creative powers.” 17
“Right after Slade lost in ’86, I don’t believe he had any thought he
would run again,” McGavick says. He’d heard how hard Gorton was taking
the loss, so he flew to D.C. a few weeks after the election to offer
moral support. Over lunch with the Gortons “it was nearly physical how
down he was—his sense of loss of the career he’d most dreamed of having.
He wasn’t to the point yet of asking ‘What went wrong?’ He was more
trying to sort out what he’d do to make a contribution now.”
A year later when Evans made his announcement, “it was very quickly
clear that if Slade really wanted to run he could have the nomination,”
McGavick continues. “He was also clearly interested in self improvement,
and not just from a political standpoint, which I honestly believe is one of
his most remarkable characteristics. I’ll never forget him coming around
to a bunch of us and saying, ‘What could I have done better?’ It was really
quite astonishing and humbling.”
McGavick organized a luncheon. “There were about eight of us, including
Walt Howe, Ritajean Butterworth and Bob Storey—old, old friends of
Slade’s. It amounted to an intervention around what we felt Slade had lost
track of. For one thing, we felt he had become a lousy listener. He’s so
smart and confident that he just didn’t communicate to other people that
he was listening to them. People would go back to Washington all excited
to be meeting their U.S. Senator and they’d leave feeling they got lectured
at. We told him that listening requires confirmation of being listened to.
It was a painful session. These were all his oldest and dearest friends and
they really ripped into him.” Howe was struck by the fact that “Slade simply
was not defensive. He was humble and receptive.”