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Introduction: Slippery Slade?

K

eRLLL ie cA son wAs coLd from her nose to her toes. Just out of col-

lege, she was an entry-level legislative assistant on Capitol Hill at

$14,000 per year. Washington, D.C., was a far cry from Pullman,

Washington, not to mention the wide spot in the road where her dad lost

his shirt in the forest products business when logging was slashed to save

the spotted owl. Working for U.S. Senator Slade Gorton was her dream

job. After rent, groceries and a car payment, however, she was always

flirting with dead broke by mid-month.

One evening in the winter of 1995 several staffers were accompanying

Slade to a reception on Capitol Hill. “Kellie, where’s your coat?” he scolded

fatherly halfway down the block. “Go back to the office and get your coat.”

“I don’t have a coat,” she said so softly it was almost a whisper. “Please,

Slade, don’t embarrass me.”

“You don’t have a coat?”

“Well, not a winter coat, but I’m going to get one when I get paid.”

“Tomorrow,” he said when the event was over, “Sally and I are going to

Delaware for a walk on Rehoboth Beach. You’re coming with us. There’s

an outlet mall there, and you’re going to get yourself a coat.”

Mortified, she wanted to say “Tomorrow isn’t pay day.” But she just

nodded and worried herself home.

Next morning they drove to the outlet mall—Slade, Sally, Kellie and

Brig, a big old slobbery dog, stuffed into an un-senatorial Geo Prizm.

At $70, the cheapest winter coats were still more than she could afford.

“I just wanted to throw up. It was so embarrassing.”

Then Slade handed her some coupons he’d been saving. “This is your

contribution,” he said. “Sally and I will take care of the rest.”

“They took me to lunch and we came home. It was a wonderful day.

Whenever I hear someone from Seattle say what an arrogant, aloof man

he is I want to shout ‘You don’t know the real Slade Gorton!’”

It’s a green wool coat—a good Republican cloth coat—that she trea-

sures to this day.