"Slade! Come on over here," Rep. Jack Metcalf, R-Wash., called out at Washington, D.C.'s La Colline restaurant in December 2000. He had spotted the Evergreen State's three-term Republican Sen. Slade Gorton and wanted this reporter to meet him.
"Hey, Jack!" replied Gorton, as he ambled over to Metcalf's table. Following introductions to me and other guests, Metcalf engaged Gorton — who died last week at age 92 — in conversation and reminiscences.
They came from opposing sides of the Republican Party and their careers were about over. Metcalf had limited himself to three two-year terms and, at 73, was leaving Congress in a month. Gorton had just lost a reelection bid to Democrat Maria Cantwell by 2,229 votes in the closest Senate race in the nation.
The sight of two old foes in the Washington State Republican Party in a state of bonhomie was memorable. They had known each other since they were both state legislators in the early 1960s and were polar opposites within the party. Metcalf was a good-as-Goldwater conservative, calling for a constitutional amendment to return the election of U.S. senators to state legislatures and demanding a full-blown investigation of the Federal Reserve Board.
Gorton was a centrist, believing in an important role for government to better people's lives. He was a close ally of his fellow moderate Republicans, such as his state's Gov. Dan Evans and Rep. (and later Lieutenant Gov.) Joel Pritchard — all of whom were usually at dagger's ends with conservatives.
"Sure, I fought with all of them — including Slade — back to the '60s and '70s," recalled former state Republican Chairman Kirby Wilbur, now a popular talk radio host on KVI-AM in Seattle. "But when they were the Republican nominees — Evans for governor, Lud Kramer for secretary of state, and Slade for attorney general — in '68, I rang doorbells for all of them."
Twelve years later, when the moderate Gorton announced for the U.S. Senate, Wilbur supported conservative primary opponent and KIRO-TV editorialist Lloyd Cooney. After Gorton emerged triumphant with the GOP nomination, the same conservatives who walked precincts for Cooney now did so for their party's nominee, who happened to be a moderate. In the fall, Gorton unseated six-term Democrat Sen. Warren Magnuson.
Over the years, the internecine warfare in the Republican Party was fierce. In 1964, led by Spokane entrepreneur Luke Williams, Goldwater conservatives swept precinct and county conventions. They shut out Gorton and the moderates and, as Theodore White wrote in "The Making of the President 1964," "they controlled the state convention lock, stock, and barrel."
Two years later, Evans, Gorton, and Washington State Republican Party Chairman Montgomery "Gummie" Johnson had some luck dislodging conservatives from leadership positions but conceded the right was still in control in the state's five largest counties.
To no one's surprise, Gorton supported Gerald Ford in 1976 when party activists turned out a national convention delegation almost completely for Ronald Reagan.
Through it all, Wilbur and other conservatives remembered, Gorton never held grudges against anyone, never recalled any slights, and both Gorton and his wife Sally had incredible recall for names and faces.
"Sally would come up and ask 'How's [wife] Trina' and make a comment on a particular show of mine," Wilbur told us.
The scion of a family that came from England to America 140 years before the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Slade Gorton III was born in Chicago. After serving in the U.S. Air Force after World War II and graduating from Dartmouth College, the young Gorton went to Northwestern University to earn his law degree.
He eventually settled in Washington state and practiced law. In 1958, he joined fellow moderate Republicans Evans and Pritchard by winning election to the state House of Representatives.
"New Breed Republicans" is what they called themselves. Authors Stephen Hess and David Broder in "The Republican Establishment" wrote that Gov. Evans and his fellow "New Breeders" recognize that "problems exist, that voters will demand action on them from some level of government, and that political leadership, indeed political survival, depends not so much on opposing the Democrats' solutions as on moving faster to provide solutions of their own."
With that philosophy, Gorton was elected state attorney general in 1968 in a hard-fought race against Democrat and prosecuting attorney John G. McCutcheon. Putting his philosophy to work, he expanded the attorney general's office to have a stronger hand in consumer protection.
As senator, he voted conservative 60% of the time. His commitment to civil rights remained solid and he was moderate on social issues. Gorton also irked conservatives with his relentless support of the National Endowment for the Arts.
But he also aggravated environmentalists by supporting the logging industry over the spotted owl and upset Native American tribes by refusing to back their claims of tribal sovereignty.
In 1986, a year in which Democrats dominated in elections, Gorton lost to former Secretary of Transportation Brock Adams. Two years later, he became one of the few Americans to serve in both of his state's Senate seats after winning a close contest with former Rep. Mike Lowry.
In an age when politics can cause loud argument and estrangement between siblings or even spouses, Slade Gorton — who forgave any disagreements among Republicans and helped those who had opposed him — was an envoy from another time.
As Kirby Wilbur put it, "They don't make 'em like Slade anymore."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.