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16 | Bicentennial Follies

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heof cove R Time ine AMgAz on February 17, 1975, did a lot more
than pique Gorton’s interest. “Scoop Out Front,” it declared. There
was Henry M. Jackson, looking decidedly presidential. Only 15
years earlier, Washington’s squeaky-clean Scandinavian senator was his
friend Jack Kennedy’s first choice for vice president. There had been so
much water over the dam it seemed like a century. Jackson now had “by far
his best and certainly his last bona fide opportunity to win the presidency
and reinvigorate” the centrist wing of the Democratic Party, Time said.
In politics as well as temperament Gorton and Jackson had much in
common, even more, in fact, than Gorton realized at the time. Scoop was
the wild card in Washington State politics in the bicentennial year. If he
won the Democratic nomination for presi-
dent, the political power grid would be en-
ergized by a whole series of job opportuni-
ties, from the county courthouse to the
state capital, U.S. House and Senate.
Jackson declared his candidacy for pres-
ident nearly two years out, hoping to fore-
close the competition. President Ford was
an “honest and honorable man,” Jackson
said, “a decent man” who had nevertheless
failed to meet the challenge of a deepen-
ing recession, mounting inflation, the
energy crisis and pressing foreign policy
issues. Unlike 1972, when he began as a
virtual unknown, Jackson was immedi-
ately the frontrunner. Ralph Nader’s Study
Group pronounced him the most effective
member of the U.S. Senate. His name recognition was at 60 percent na-
tionally and rising. Jackson was strong on national defense; an unwaver-
ing friend of Israel and foe of détente, appalled by the Soviet Union’s op-

Jackson on the cover of Time.