The Gortons and Slades - Washington Secretary of State

A duBious honoR 325
vinced her to say no to a bid for the U.S. Senate. “Politics is politics,”
Gregoire said, adding that Gorton had made that “real clear when he went
out of his way” to support her Republican opponent in 1992. The possibility
of a cabinet post in a Gore administration was also enticing. 2
Ron Sims was reluctant to risk his job as King County executive, arguably
the second-most important office in the state, for a bruising rematch
with Gorton. State Supreme Court Justice Phil Talmadge, a brainy former
state senator, was thinking it over. Many found him as astringent as
Gorton.
While Gorton seemed vulnerable over his run-ins with Indians, environmentalists,
senior citizens, unions, right-wingers and Clinton defenders,
it seemed for months that he might luck out.
Deborah Senn, the state’s two-term insurance commissioner, was running
hard. She was a divisive figure, however, even in her own party.
With her spiky hairdo and piercing eyes, Senn projected the butt-kicking
bravado of Chicago’s South Side, where she grew up. She dismissed most
of her enemies as anti-Semites. 3
Jim McDermott, Seattle’s unabashedly liberal congressman, was also
mentioned as a potential challenger. But he was demonstrably unelectable
statewide. Those two would be “like bugs on the senior senator’s windshield,”
Joni Balter wrote. 4
Some said former congresswoman Maria Cantwell, still smarting over
her re-election loss in 1994, might be the party’s last best hope. Would
she really risk a major lump of the millions she’d made at RealNetworks
for a shot at a seat in the Senate in what was certain to be an exhausting,
contentious campaign—first against the pugnacious Senn, then against
Gorton if she won the primary?
She would. Extremely bright, determined and often perceived as
aloof, Cantwell, 41, shared another trait with Gorton: She loved being in
Congress.
“you’Re cRAzy!” Ron dotzAueR, an old friend, told Cantwell when she
showed up at his consulting firm in Seattle and told him she was going to
run for the Senate.
“No I’m not,” she said with a confident smirk.
“Yes you are. Look, if you really want to do good things and get back
into public policy take some of your money and set up a foundation.”
“No. This is important to me. I think it’s the right thing to do, and it’s
the right time to do it.”
“Good luck. I’m going to Mexico!”