the yeAR of Living dAngeRousLy 195
with Gorton, he said he wanted “real policy world” experience to prepare
himself for a career as a teacher and researcher. Exhilarating and exhaust-
ing, the job was everything he’d hoped for and a lot more. The man widely
viewed as arrogant was a great boss and mentor. Age didn’t matter to
Gorton; smarts did. He loved to regale the staff with insider stories. Late
one night when Slade was still on the floor of the Senate, they were eating
pizza in his office, with Ellings plopped in the senator’s chair. When the
phone rang, he answered “Rich Ellings” on autopilot as if he was in his
own cubicle. It was Mrs. Gorton, who mused that he must be the “acting
senator.”
onenthM o fRoM eLection dAy, as he prepared for his first debate with
Walter Mondale, Reagan shut down “nonessential” government services.^14
Surprisingly, in light of the final outcome, some polls indicated Mon-
dale was within striking distance, so the amiable former vice president
came out like Sugar Ray Leonard, throwing uppercuts when the bell rang
in Louisville on Oct. 7, with Barbara Walters as the referee. Recalling a
decisive moment in one of the 1980 debates, Mondale said, “When Presi-
dent Carter said you were going to cut Medicare, you said, ‘Oh, no, there
you go again, Mr. President!’ And what did you do right after the election?
You went out and tried to cut $20 billion out of Medicare. And so when
you say ‘There you go again’... people will remember that you signed
the biggest tax increase in the history of the United States... You’ve got
a $260 billion deficit. You can’t wish it away.” Reagan’s rejoinder was that
his program was working. The budget would be balanced by 1989, he
promised. America was on the rebound. Then he vowed, “I will never
stand for a reduction of the Social Security benefits to the people who are
now getting them.. .”^15
Congressman Lowry thought Mondale had scored some points. The
Republicans were promising what he called “Voodoo Economics, Num-
ber 2”—no new taxes, no cuts in Social Security or Medicare, a massive
military buildup and Star Wars gismology. “I think there’s still a chance—
an outside chance—that Mondale can pull this off,” Lowry told Dick
Larsen, The Seattle Times’ political columnist, two days before the elec-
tion. He conceded that the deficit was boring. Larsen said that was an
understatement. “On a scale of thrilling things to read about,” it ranked
somewhere between the Tacoma phone directory and the Department of
Agriculture’s “Abstract of Soybean Production Trends, 1958-1968.” For all
the time he’d spent and the damage it had done to his relationship with
Reagan, Gorton had to sadly agree. “Nearly everywhere it’s a yawner.”^16