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When seven workers for a Hanford contractor were dismissed for mis-
handling plutonium, the specter of a deadly accident or the contamina-
tion of the Columbia aquifer grew more menacing, with the WPPSS bond
debacle thrown in for bad measure.
In June, an energized Adams gave the speech of his life at the State
Democratic Convention in Spokane. “In the past, our Northwest senators
fought our tough battles in the Senate,” he thundered. “We won when
California tried to take our water. We won when others tried to put super-
tankers in Puget Sound. But what do we win now?—the DOE nuclear
lottery! The East gets the power and we get the garbage. Maybe we should
call the site the Slade Gorton Memorial Dump!” The delegates leapt to
their feet, cheering and chanting “Brock! Brock!”^6
withong c Ress stiLL in session, Gorton was a red-eyed weekend war-
rior. A mid-August poll for the Adams campaign showed the Democrat
closing the gap to 4 percent, with 20 percent of the likely voters unde-
cided. Although Gorton’s tracking polls around Labor Day indicated
Slade still had big lead, low-turnout primaries are a crap shoot. Newman
and Excell were worried. Confirmation arrived in the form of a lightning
bolt on the night of September 16 when the primary election ballots were
tallied. Adams nearly outpolled Gorton. The turnout was 27 percent, and
fewer than 20 percent of the voters showed up in King County’s tradition-
ally Republican suburbs. Every headline hailed the upset. What Adams
most needed now was money to match his momentum, and Democratic
donors opened their checkbooks. With a net gain of four seats, the party
could regain control of the Senate. Frank Greer, one of the country’s top
Democratic consultants, came on board.
Team Gorton called for reinforcements and regrouped, shifting its fo-
cus from Gorton’s record to Adams’ record. Evans loaned much of his
staff to the campaign. All of Slade’s competitive juices kicked in. They
interspersed their attack ads with more positive, senatorial messages and
quickly regained the lead. Excell warned, however, that things could turn
on a dime if they made any mistakes. Adams certainly wasn’t making
any. Whenever he landed a solid punch, the gap would close.^7
While Reagan had helped Gorton raise $2 million, the administration
was doing Slade more harm than good, sending mixed signals on the
waste dump and dragging its heels on its end of the bargain over the
judges. Manion had been on the bench since July. Dwyer was in limbo.
Such was Attorney General Meese’s disdain that the Seattle attorney
wasn’t even nominated by the White House until late September. When