Saturday, March 06, 2010

A Barer Ran For State House In '64




Most people who know me, know of my thirst for politics,I've always said that it runs in the family.
In 1964, my dad's brother Arny (top picture) decided to run for the state legislature in Washington's 46th district, he had been practicing law for about 5years in Downtown Seattle, unfortunately, his opponent was another young lawyer named Slade Gorton (bottom picture). Although Lyndon Johnson was able to win the Presidency by a landslide that year, his coattails did not reach this state. Washington elected Republican Dan Evans to be Governor while Gorton beat my uncle for a position in the State House. Gorton would go on to represent Washington in the US Senate and Arny would become known for being a friend and confident to Wes Uhlman, who would serve as Seattle mayor during the late 60s and early 70s.   You can click here and scroll down to the 46th district, to see the voter results from his campaign.
I can remember my grandmother having all sorts of fliers from my uncle's campaign, I'll continue to look for any posted articles or such to put on this blog.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Uncle Arnie ran in a district that had not seen a credible democrat run in recent history. Slade was a popular young lawyer, a scion of the wealthy Gorton Fish family, running in a "safe riding".

Arnie got a good ratng from the municiple league.

Basically, he worked his butt off, ran a good campaign and really only accomplished drawing some Republican dollars off other campaigns.

Dad

Anonymous said...

Arny ran as a favor to Wes, who was his best friend from law school at the UW. The election was actually very close -- much closer than anyone expected.

If you shoot an email to Arny (or your Aunt Carol), they can scan the mailer my dad still has in his collection. It's a great example of 1960's political marketing. Personally, I just love the photo on it.

Sam