the coMeBAcK 249
dom issues,” backing gay rights, abortion and the Equal Rights Amend-
ment, while opposing “Star Wars” and following the ACLU line on anti-
drug laws. Gorton in fact also voted pro-choice, backed the ERA, the
National Endowment for the Arts and had been endorsed by the gay Log
Cabin Republicans. He too received a zero on the scorecard, but the cam-
paign said that was because he didn’t respond to the questionnaire. Gor-
ton said the flier was “simply an opposite side of the coin” from ratings by
the ACLU and the Americans for Democratic Action. “Mike tends to be a
zero or close to a zero on any conservative rating... I tend to be a 50 or
70 on any conservative group rating. It’s simply another illustration that
I’m in the middle of the political spectrum, perhaps a little to the conser-
vative side, and Mike is in the extreme.” The flier included testimonials
from Idaho’s Steve Symms and other archconservatives. Electing Lowry
would be “to hand Mike Dukakis, Teddy Kennedy and Jesse Jackson a vic-
tory on election day,” they warned.^46
Lowry’s misgivings about negativity prompted him to question the
wisdom of a last-minute ad reprising the Hanford “bomb factory” theme.
But Kapolczynski and adman Steve McMahon were gung ho to hit Gor-
ton hard. Hanford had been just what the doctor ordered for Adams in
’86. The new commercial featured a big semi rolling toward the camera.
A yellow sign on its side said “Caution Nuclear Waste.” Voice over: “The
congressional record shows while Slade Gorton was in the Senate he
voted with the nuclear industry to make it easier to dump the nation’s
nuclear waste in Washington State. And after he was defeated, Gorton
went to work as a Seattle attorney on a new project—to turn WPPSS into
a factory producing highly radioactive fuel for nuclear bombs.... Slade
Gorton’s been working for the nuclear industry for years. Do you really
expect him to stop now?” As the truck rumbles past, the camera pans to
a group of kids standing by the road.^47
The Gorton campaign was indignant. Lowry said the truth merely hurt.
“Of course it’s a bomb factory,” he told reporters. “What do you think you
use tritium for—flower pots?” In a 2008 interview, however, Lowry said
he “absolutely should have nixed” the ad. “It was negative, but not com-
pared to today’s.” A videotape excavation of the mud of yesteryear confirms
everyone was doing it, the harbinger of even stronger stuff in the years to
come. As zingers go, however, Bomb Factory Redux and Gone to Pot, com-
plete with a scruffy stoner lighting a joint, still hold their own.^48
ds who hvAn eAn, Ad chAMpioned converting the unfinished WPPSS
plant No. 1 at Hanford to produce tritium, was “really ticked” by the Lowry