goRton Agonistes 117
Republican storm as many others have—by pretending Watergate and
related affairs were Nixonian in context and had nothing to do with the
Republican Party. But Slade Gorton is not built that way. He doesn’t mind
embracing a controversial subject nor speaking up for an unpopular
cause, regardless of the consequences. This newspaper has been in dis-
agreement with Gorton on several issues, but it recognizes what most
Washington residents readily accept: Gorton is an honest, earnest, brave
public servant who acts according to conscience, not political expedi-
ency. Above all, Gorton’s stand is like a reveille call at the fort for the...
beleaguered state Republican Party. After a long period of hemming-and-
hawing, all the stalwarts who have been ducking the issue now may have
to stand up and be counted.”^10
“What is Gorton’s future?” the Post-Intelligencer posited. “Long consid-
ered a logical, exceptional successor to Evans as the head of his party and
with excellent potential for the governorship, the attorney general may
have put his future on the line. It is possible the ultraconservative wing of
the party may write him off... .It is also possible, as a consequence, that
he may have alienated major contributors to whatever campaign he may
project in the future.... But we don’t think so. On the contrary, we be-
lieve Gorton’s willingness to stick his chin out and walk where others fear
to tread will win him far more support than he might have lost... .We are
also convinced independent voters and many Democrats will remember
his daring, too. Gorton has been one of the most dedicated, hard-work-
ing, effective attorneys general in Washington State history.... If Presi-
dent Nixon could have had associates at his side of Gorton’s caliber in-
stead of the stripe he chose, we’re convinced resignation or impeachment
would not now be subjects of national concern.”^11
Returning home to find his conservative wing of the party in high
dudgeon, Dunn fumed that Gorton’s stand smacked of “grandstanding”
and derriere-protecting. “I don’t feel that to stab a man in the back is an
act of courage,” the King County Republican leader said. “On the con-
trary,” Gorton’s suggestion that Nixon resign made “a mockery” of the
presumption that a person is innocent until proven guilty. Gorton’s
speech had played right into the hands of “a hostile press” and the other
powerful “liberal-left forces,” Dunn told the Young Men’s Republican
Club. Given Nixon’s plummeting approval ratings, many Republicans
were “running scared.” Gorton, who “had been talked about seriously” as
a possible candidate for governor in 1976, sadly seemed to have joined
that crowd, Dunn said.^12 In the argot of the Nixon administration, the
operative words there were “had been.”^