the coMeBAcK 237
Afterward, McGavick and Gorton walked back to their offices together.
“How do you feel?”
“I feel like crap.”
“Well, that had to be awful, Slade. I’m sorry I contributed to it.”
“No, I get it. I think I just need to work on this.”
They met again a couple of weeks later. “Look,” said McGavick, “you’re
just too damn smart—so smart that you can’t let people finish their sen-
tences. What you need to start doing is to pause for two seconds after the
other person finishes before you answer them. It’ll do two things for you:
One, you’ll quit finishing their questions for them and, two, it will appear
as if you actually had to think about what they said. That’ll really impress
people and make them feel good about themselves. Remember, they don’t
ask a question just because they want to know the answer; they ask a
question because they think it’s important.”
Gorton smiled. “Thank you,” he told his young friend.
The Gortons mailed 18,000 Christmas cards in December of 1987, as
many as when he was a senator. Inquiring minds wanted to know if his
sleigh was in the race. He said he was still undecided. There was money
left over from the 1986 campaign, “and there were very few things it could
be used for, so it was quite appropriate to tell people what my new address
was.”^18
RJAuon n A y 8, 1988, Slade’s 60th birthday, Sid Morrison bowed out in
large part for a reason that would dog Gorton. A statewide poll commis-
sioned by the 4th District congressman found voters with strongly negative
feelings about Hanford, either as a waste repository or weapons supplier,
the specter Adams had raised so effectively. Morrison was also discouraged
that so few were enthusiastic about having a senator from Eastern Wash-
ington. “I will not apologize for my support of the good people who work at
Hanford,” he said, “but I have come to recognize intellectually, if not emo-
tionally, that it would be extremely difficult to run statewide when an op-
ponent’s reference to ‘that guy from Eastern Washington who represents
Hanford’ would count as two strikes against me.” Gorton was now unques-
tionably the leading contender. Morrison said his poll indicated Slade could
win, “but he will have some barriers as well.” Bonker was on it instantly,
flatly predicting Hanford would cripple Gorton’s candidacy because “it
now goes beyond his earlier position of supporting conversion. He has a
direct investment in that project by way of his law firm.” Lowry’s adminis-
trative assistant, Don Wolgamott, agreed. Privately, he told Lowry they
couldn’t let Bonker project himself as the more aggressive challenger.^19