"Oscar Wilde once observed…." Republican Gov.-elect Dan Evans of Washington state said in 1964, his opening words to the Republican National Committee probably "earning a place in American political annals," David Broder and Stephen Hess wrote in their 1967 book "The Republican Establishment."
A little-known engineer and three-term state legislator, Evans, at 39, had become an overnight national figure in 1964 by unseating two-term Gov. Albert Rosellini by 148,564 votes. At the same time, GOP presidential nominee Barry Goldwater was losing the state by 309,333 votes and four Republican House members went down to defeat.
When the news came that Evans had died, at age 98, his ability to win against the odds — going on to three terms as governor of the Evergreen State and one as U.S. Senator — was widely remembered. Even political rivals admired how Evans — handsome, athletic, and with a photogenic wife and three sons — could win against the odds and never seem to make enemies out of those with whom he disagreed.
In words that would seem outrageous in today's Republican Party, Evans told the New York Times' Tom Wicker in 1966 that if the American people have "any philosophy, it is probably pragmatism. And if they have any clear-cut goal, it would be to solve the problems of society and the economy in a logical, factual manner."
The young governor believed that while most Republicans were anti-government and their belief that most problems could be solved at the local and state levels, voters demanded action at some level of government. To survive, he insisted to the Times' Wicker, Republicans must not simply oppose Democratic solutions as to move on faster to solutions of their own.
This was the theme Evans underscored to a national television audience in 1968 when he delivered the keynote address to the Republican National Convention that nominated Richard Nixon for president.
It was also the way he governed. In Olympia, he fought hard against a Democratic-controlled legislature for tax reform, streamlining state government, and long-range planning for the state economy.
Evans frequently clashed with fellow Republicans further to his right, but it never grew ugly and personal. As a candidate for governor in '64, he knew well that the far more conservative head of his party's ticket would lose badly. But in running a separate campaign for governor, Evans nonetheless endorsed Goldwater for president.
He fought with the right-of-center element within the state Republican Party that had come to power through the Goldwater campaign. As Hess and Broder wrote, "Evans conceded that his opponents, including National Committeewoman Fran Cooper and King County (Seattle) Chair Ken Rogstad, still controlled the five largest counties and had strength in several others."
Evans worked closely with his fellow Republican governors who in 1967 occupied 11 of the 13 Western states — among them moderates Tom McCall of Oregon and John Love of Colorado and conservatives such as Paul Laxalt of Nevada and California's Ronald Reagan. Issues such as conservation and overhauling welfare (which Reagan soon took the lead on as he moved California to a workfare-over-welfare agenda in the early 1970's) brought the Western governors together. Evans became the most forceful advocate among the group on federal state relations and a forceful advocate for federal tax sharing for the states.
Evans served three terms (1964-76) as governor and retired to what he thought was his "dream job:" the presidency of Evergreen State College. But fate intervened in his life in a big way. In 1983, the state's beloved Democrat Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson died shortly after winning his sixth term. GOP Gov. John Spellman then named Evans to the seat and he subsequently won a special election to fill out the remaining five years of Jackson's term.
As he did while governor, Evans supported strong conservation measures and the Civil Rights Restoration Act (which President Reagan had vetoed). He was also pro-choice on abortion. But he also almost always voted with old friend Reagan on his economic and defense policies and for the confirmation of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court (which failed in the Democrat-controlled Senate).
Evans decided not to run again in 1988 because, as he wrote in the New York Times, "debate has come to consist of set speeches read before a largely empty chamber" and he was fed up with "bickering and protracted paralysis."
Perhaps the best summation of Evans came from Kirby Wilbur, former state GOP chair and popular radio talk show host. As Wilbur told Newsmax, "Dan was a liberal Republican in the Rockefeller mode, but he was a good and decent man.
When I was state Republican chairman he was willing to help me in fundraising and giving advice. At the 1976 state Republican convention, the Young Republicans had a booth and we had made a button: 'Cheer Up. It's Dan Evans' Last Term.' We were selling them and he was walking by the booths. When he saw the button, he laughed and bought one, put it on, and said it could make his wife Nancy happy. There were times politics was much more civil than today."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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