294 sLAde goRton: A hALf centuRy in poLitics
Networks. Buoyed by the Dotcom bubble, her stock options made her a
multimillionaire in nothing flat. As smart as she was lucky, her itch for
politics went away only temporarily.
Elway’s polling on the weekend before the election found that issues
mattered little to voters in the Gorton-Sims race. Gorton’s negatives were
still high but his positives were way up. While 44 percent of Sims’ voters
just flat didn’t like Gorton, Slade had wide support among all demo-
graphic groups statewide, even from a sizable number of Democrats. His
integrity, his politics and his experience were cited repeatedly.
Relieved that he’d won an election without worrying about absentees,
Gorton was grateful and conciliatory. “We need to remember that this
nation of ours is not just Republicans; it’s Democrats—even those indif-
ferent people who didn’t vote,” he told his cheering supporters. “We
haven’t been given a blank check. We’ve been given an opportunity....
We’ve got to produce or two years from now we could suffer the same di-
saster the Democrats did.”^24
He’d never felt better. A month later, he had a heart attack.