246 sLAde goRton: A hALf centuRy in poLitics
of Pamela Harriman, Georgetown’s grande dame of Democratic politics.
The haul was $260,000, and sorely needed to keep pace with McGavick’s
couterattacks.^34
On Oct. 7 Lowry got a hero’s welcome at SeaTac airport. He was also
cheered by two new polls that calculated Gorton’s lead was now within
the margin of error. Sympathy for Lowry’s illness apparently diluted any
disgust over the attack ads. McGavick was right: They worked.
Even Evans gave the Democrat a boost by opposing conservative
amendments to allow warrantless searches in drug cases and the intro-
duction of illegally obtained evidence. Like Lowry, Evans also opposed
Gorton’s call for the death penalty to deter “murderous drug lords” and
civil fines as high as $10,000 for simple possession. See, Lowry said,
liberalism in defense of the Constitution is no vice.^35
Three days later, McGavick responded with the most controversial ad
of the campaign. It accused Lowry of favoring legalization of marijuana.
The charge was based on a nine-year-old article in the Daily, the Univer-
sity of Washington student newspaper. The article said Lowry “told a
small group of people he would support their quest to legalize mari-
juana.” Disagreeing with their request that alcohol be prohibited instead
of pot, the congressman was quoted as saying, “Prohibition of anything
doesn’t work.” Fast forward to 1986, Gorton’s commercial added, and there
was Lowry, as liberal as ever, voting against “the biggest drug-fighting law
ever passed.” And now, in 1988, he had opposed another crackdown “be-
cause it had penalties on drug dealers Lowry thinks are too tough.”^36
“This really crosses the boundary into misstatement,” Lowry com-
plained bitterly, adding that he favored “stiff, strong penalties on drug
dealers” as long as the Constitution wasn’t trashed in the process. He
surmised that the comment attributed to him in 1979 might have
stemmed from a question about a Seattle city ordinance decriminalizing
small amounts of marijuana. “I do not support legalization of drugs, in-
cluding marijuana, and I have not,” Lowry said. Reporters who had cov-
ered him for years knew that was true. McGavick was unrepentant. “He’s
disputing his own words,” Gorton’s campaign manager insisted. “I am
surprised that Mike is claiming a misstatement. It absolutely is in the
record.” To a reporter who kept challenging the spot’s veracity, McGavick
said, “You guys can never catch up to an ad.” The campaign promptly is-
sued a new press release accusing Lowry of “yet another attempt to ob-
scure his very liberal record.”^37
Pressed for documentation, Gorton’s people said that when they
couldn’t find the former student reporter, Kelly Smith, to double check