Political History

This time the political history I am writing about is my own. It shows how a regular person gets sucked and and addicted to politics for a lifetime.

My indoctrination into politics started in high school. I was in a Civics class. We were broken up into groups, each of which was to design a public opinion project and write a report on our findings. The only parameter is that it had to be something to do with government. My group decided to investigate opinion on the city manager form of government recently adopted by our city. We designed a questionnaire, picked places we could get people to interview, and picked some city officials to talk to. A short time later, we were told we couldn't do our project. Somehow word of what we wanted to do had somehow gotten to someone in city government and they called the school and complained. That ended that. I never forgot it. It was the beginning of my involvement in politics.

I admit I was pretty naive back then. I remember signing members of the Montana government into a conference one day. I asked this nice man what he did. The laughter was deafening. He was the governor. But he was a very nice guy and was polite. I was so embarassed. The next day I got a nice note from him. I remembered that.

When I returned to the Seattle area, I got married and began getting involved again. I remember meeting this very Kennedyeque young banker named Chase who was running for the Senate. He didn't have a chance, but he was so appealing politically. I remember bouncing around the dark country roads of rural Washington in a bus with him and his campaign staff (I was just a grunt) attending town meetings. He was a Republican as I recall. It was on this campaign that I met Ted Bundy. Yes. That Ted Bundy. Met is a relative term. I knew him well enough to say "good morning, Mr. Budy."

I was involved in the Vietnam anti-war movement and later joined a campaign to elect a state Senator one last time before he retired. I did a lot in that one, running some of the nuts and bolts parts of the campaign out of my house. It was a political machine against a very right wing nutcase of an opponent who was the former mayor of our city. It was pretty funny. We won even though our candidate was so old he couldn't make public appearances. Don't get me wrong. He was as sharp as they come. He was just frail physically. What was sad is that a few months after the election, he died. It was at his funeral that I met Warren Magnusen and Scoop Jackson. (Please understand that none of these people could be classified as friends other than the old senator. They were people I worked for sometimes politically).

From there I received a phone call one evening late from a man I barely knew. He mentioned another friend. He had been told I was politically savvy and that I could write. He wanted me to meet him and two other local political types at a really sort of questionable waterfront breakfast cafe the next morning at like 6:30 in the morning. It was all highly hush hush. Of course I went. Seems that our illustrious right wing city council had finally stepped over two many lines to be tolerated (like awarding cable TV contracts to their friends rather than using a bidding process, an some others). These three men represented a group of pretty prominent people in our town. They asked me to join them as the publicist for a recall effort. The political evaluation was that of the five members they were targeting for recall, we had a very good chance of getting three of them recalled. I went home, wrote up and called in the press release (a reporter was waiting for it). It was published almost unchanged. Months later we held a victory party in almost stunned silence. We had recalled all five and the city council was without a quorum.

This and the following event set the tone for my political interest for the rest of my life. Being down there in the trenches doing the real work was wonderful and I loved it. The final incident involved a phone call I got just after the city council thing was settled. A man introduced himself as the deputy mayor and unoffical head of the city council. He told me I had been nominated for one of the vacant council seats, and wanted to set up the first of what was to be a long interview process. I thought he was a friend playing a practical joke. It took me rounds of apologies once I realized he was who he said he was and that he was serious. The interview process was fascinating. It was the only time in my life that reporters called me about me. In the end the process for that particular seat came down to me, and another woman who was a personal friend of mine. I found out years later that the determining factor in the end was that her children were school aged and mine were not, so she had more free time. That was it. Pretty flattering.

I was hooked. I've been politically active and involved since. This was back in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This brief contact with the internal workings of politics in this country really opened my eyes. I love it to be honest. If there were a campaign where I could materially contribute today I'd be doing it. I don't mean just answering telephones and stuffing envelopes this time. I've seen so much and met so many people. It's funny how much different politics appears from the inside looking out, and I was never one of the inner cadre (other than for the recall). Political campaigns are exciting because they are a win/lose situation and have a definite end date.

I'll leave you with my most embarassing political moment ever. I had put together my candidates booth for a candidate's fair at the local mall. I was manning the booth, answering questions, handing out campaign literature, etc. It was the candidate I told you about who couldn't make personal appearances. My husband showed up with our kids. He kept our son with him and I took our daughter for a walk to see the other booths. I guess I never stopped to think that even a five year old listens when adults talk around the house. She looked really cute in a red, white, and blue dress and a banner across it with our candidate's name. She had on a white straw campaign hat. She's a tiny little redhead and was cute. She really caught people's eye. Let's call the opposition candidate Bob Smith. My daughter was asking me the names of the various people at the booths. As we passed Bob Smith's booth I told her that was Bob Smith. In a little girl voice that carries to the ends of the universe and beyond, she looked him in the eye and yelled "Bob Smith. Bleh." If there had been a way of simply sinking through the floor, I would have. The laughter was deafening.

I miss this level of participation to this day. The memories still make me smile.