The Gortons and Slades - Washington Secretary of State

7 | Taking On Giants
DAn evAns, civiL engineeR, was back at work in his office in
Seattle when an Associated Press reporter called in the spring
of 1963. “What’s this about a Draft Dan Evans Committee?”
“Draft Dan Evans for what?” he laughed. “Well, governor, of course.”
Evans said it was news to him. Not that the thought hadn’t crossed his
mind. Gorton, the Pritchard brothers and C. Montgomery “Gummie”
Johnson, Weyerhaeuser’s public relations man, were telling him he had
little to lose and a lot to gain by running for governor in 1964 even though
it was shaping up as a Democratic year.
With his Eagle Scout-family man image, Evans was the handsome
young face of progressive Republican politics in Washington State. The
press coverage of the fractious coalition session had introduced him to a
statewide audience. Herb Hadley of Longview, elected to the House in
one of 1962’s biggest upsets, was thinking big. He launched the Draft
Dan Evans Committee. “Those guys just thought, ‘Well, we’ll goose this
thing along,’” Evans recalls.
The Evans brain trust began meeting weekly. Gorton increasingly believed
Dan had a real chance, and if they lost a close one they’d still be
looking good for 1968. Joel Pritchard said there was only one way to go—
“full tilt.” He and Frank maintained that winning the GOP nomination
for governor was going to be tougher than beating Rosellini. Gummie,
who smoked Churchillian cigars and cussed like a sailor, was always
gung ho. Jim Dolliver, the sharp lawyer who functioned as chief of staff
for the House GOP caucus, was also enthusiastic. “We all felt like we were
on a mission,” Gorton remembers. “We were pretty young,” Pritchard said,
“and we were taking on giants.” 1
The murder of John F. Kennedy in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, cast a pall
over politics. Most analysts believed Americans were unlikely to want
three presidents in the space of 14 months. There were clear signs, however,
that Washingtonians were open to electing a new governor. No
Washington governor had ever won three consecutive terms, and Rosellini
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