Gorton, G

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</font></div><div><a href="https://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/war-zone-pollster/content?oid=35189">https://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/war-zone-pollster/content?oid=35189</a></div><div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">...moore was born in Loma Linda in the late 1960s. His parents were students, not yet ready to have children. And so, the infant was given up for adoption at birth. For the next few years, Mr. and Mrs. Moore and their adopted child lived in Ontario in Southern California. Then, when he was 4 years old, the family moved to Oklahoma.</font></div><div>
</div><div>When Steven Moore was 15 years old, his adoptive father died of lung cancer. Four years later, the adoption agency contacted Mrs. Moore to let her know that Steven’s biological mother was interested in making contact with him. It took Steven three years and a whole lot of soul-searching before he decided that he actually did want to meet her.</div><div>
</div><div>In the fall of 1989, Steven Moore’s mother flew out from California to Oklahoma and visited. That Christmas, Moore made the return trip west. His biological mother was still friends with his <b>father, George Gorton,</b> a conservative political consultant in Sacramento who counted Pete Wilson among those in his social circle, and during that trip Gorton and Moore became friends. “I call him George,” Moore explained. “It’d be really weird to call him Dad. We have a relationship more like brothers than like father-son.”</div><div>
</div><div>Gorton invited his son to return in the summer of 1990, after he’d graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a journalism degree and a minor in English, to intern at Gorton’s consulting company. And it was that summer that Moore realized his love of political minutiae. “I licked the envelopes [like other interns],” he remembered. “And then, George and I would go to his house and look over poll results for fun. It was really good. I found out I really like polling. I really like public opinion.”</div><div>
</div><div>Perhaps, after all, genetics really is destiny. From that summer, Moore was hooked. From then on, too, he was soured on Oklahoma. A moderate Republican—of the secular, Schwarzenegger strand of the party, rather than the fire-breathing, hell-and-damnation wing—the young man decided that the heartlands weren’t for him. “I looked at a map,” he recalled, smiling slightly, “and said, ‘Where would be the farthest place I could get to from Oklahoma?’” Moore moved to Australia and spent several months hitchhiking around Down Under.</div><div>
</div><div>For the next few years, he alternated between Sacramento, where he would work on political campaigns for an assortment of Republicans—including Pete Wilson, by then the governor of California—and traveling the world.</div><div>
</div><div><b>In 1996, a wealthy Russian banker surreptitiously hired Moore and several other American consultants to shore up then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s dismally creaky re-election campaign.</b> They were brought in to teach spin, to set up focus groups and demonstrate polling techniques, and to work out a strategy to make the oft-drunken Yeltsin shine.</div><div>
</div><div>Moore moved to Moscow, to a place in which politicians and their henchmen routinely were targeted by assassins. The mayor of Moscow’s running mate was blown up in a car bomb; the mayor of St. Petersburg’s campaign manager had acid thrown in his face. The banker and his American consultants would drive around town in armored Mercedeses, a bevy of automatic-weapon-toting bodyguards in tow.</div><div>
</div><div>In secret meetings with Yeltsin’s daughter Tatiana, convened by the banker—meetings in which the mogul would pace the conference room, his jacket off and a pistol visible above his trousers—the team would issue advice on how to use American political strategies to give buoyancy to the leader, at a time when his approval ratings were as low as 6 percent. The focus groups that Moore and his colleagues conducted indicated huge numbers of Russians believed Yeltsin was either a tool of the CIA, was in league with the Chechens or was simply too stupid to govern. <b>Go negative, the Americans urged the Yeltsin people. Unless the Yeltsin camp could foster even worse perceptions of its opponents, in particular of the resurgent Communists, than existed of its own man, Yeltsin’s re-election prospects were poor.</b></div><div>
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</div><div>Moore attends a lecture for Iraqi female activists, discussing how to get power for women in a democracy.]</div><div>
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</div><div>The message hit home. Yeltsin’s people went negative, in the finest tradition of American politicking, and his poll numbers started to go up—<b>in much the same way as the unpopular Pete Wilson’s numbers had during a re-election campaign in which he repeatedly played the tough-on-crime card and accused his opponent of coddling criminals.</b></div><div>
</div><div><b />Five months after he’d arrived, Moore returned back to Wilson’s California. Shortly afterward, Yeltsin got re-elected. And a few years later, the Showtime cable channel made a movie about the U.S. consultants, titled Spinning Boris. Moore himself wasn’t portrayed in the movie—although Gorton was—but, Moore said, a trace defensively, “I put together a memo every day recapping the day’s events … much of which made it in the movie.”</div><div>
</div><div>Over the next few years, Moore worked mainly in San Diego—for a dot-com startup and then as a consultant for then-Mayor Susan Golding. Looking for the next chapter in his life to unfold, he got accepted into a program in international business at Thunderbird Graduate School in Arizona. Graduating in December 2000, he got a job with a venerable, time-tested consulting firm just in time for the firm to file bankruptcy.</div><div>
</div><div>Thus, when the world as we knew it was shattered on the morning of September 11, 2001, Moore was unemployed, antsy from having stayed stateside for too long, and looking for a new focus. September 11 provided that focus.</div><div>
</div><div>“I spent days watching the TV,” he said. “At some point, making money became less important than using my skills to help ease tensions in the world. I had heard about the<b> International Republican Institute</b>, and I started pursuing a job there.”</div><div>
</div><div>The IRI was a Cold War-era nonprofit organization set up by the National Endowment for Democracy during the Reagan years and designed to promote an American vision of pluralism in countries that, traditionally, hadn’t had much wiggle room to develop political freedoms. At least, that’s how IRI supporters viewed it.</div><div>
</div><div>“The job,” Moore stated, just a trace uncritically, “is to make democrats [of the small-D genre, rather than the U.S. political-party variety]. Just by virtue of the fact that you grew up in a democracy, you know far more about how democracy works than the leaders of, say, Indonesia, East Timor, Russia—all places I’ve worked.”</div><div>
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</div><div>Mortars and beers on the balcony: Steven Moore and a few friends on the 10th floor of a hotel, watching mortar shells come over the hotel and strike in the Green Zone.]</div><div>
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</div><div>Of course, IRI wasn’t just about molding supporters of political openness and liberty; it wa<b>s about making a particular kind of democratic citizen, sympathetic to the United States and in tune with rhetoric that equated free-market economics with political freedom. Critics point out that IRI’s board is stacked full of prominent Republicans, businessmen and Cold War strategists</b>. IRI and other ideologically similar groups, say such observers, talked the talk about democracy when it suited them but turned a blind eye to administration-sponsored strongmen and juntas in Latin America and other Cold War hotspots when the need arose.</div><div>
</div><div>In the post-Cold War world, however, support for anti-Communist juntas has gone out of fashion fairly comprehensively (excluding countries such as Pakistan, where military strongmen are deemed, by Washington’s foreign-policy apparatus, necessary in the fight against Islamic extremism), and democratic institutions have begun to take root even in places that had languished for years under American-sponsored dictatorships, such as Indonesia.</div><div>
</div><div>“A job was open in Indonesia,” Moore recalled of his initial hiring by the organization. “They’d just had their first democratic election. So, I got a job there. I moved to Jakarta,” the capital of a country that, the consultant pointed out, is the largest Muslim nation in the world. As a consultant, Moore’s job would be to advise political players on how to craft a political landscape in which democratic political behaviors would become the norm.</div><div>
</div><div>Moore found that working in the newly democratizing Indonesia was, in many ways, not too dissimilar to his post-Soviet Russian experience. “The tools are all the same,” he said, explaining the nation-hopping. “In some cases, the first leaders elected after the overthrow of a totalitarian government don’t understand that they have to be responsive to the needs of the voters. Polls and focus groups work the same in every country in the world.” Many pundits say that polls are overused in the United States, but they are underused most other places. “If you ask people their opinion about what their government should do, then the government does it, in nine out of 10 cases the favorable opinion of the government leader increases. Smart leaders get it. Less-smart leaders don’t stay leaders long.”</div><div>
</div><div>The consultant is proud of the expanse of his work over the years<b>. “I’ve probably done 300 to 400 focus groups</b>, most in a non-English language,” he said. In such situations, Moore relies on local translators to back up the skills that he brings with him from America....</div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><a href="https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/news/from-san-diego-to-moscow-george-gortons-strange-and-wild-assignments-5/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/news/from-san-diego-to-moscow-george-gortons-strange-and-wild-assignments-5/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Part one of a two-part series.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2008/06/24/news/gorton-two1062408.txt" target="blank" style="font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Read part two</a>. 404 -->&nbsp;</span><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20141019111819/http://voiceofsandiego.org/2008/06/24/battling-oligarchs-and-parkinsons-the-great-resurrections-of-george-gorton-2/">https://web.archive.org/web/20141019111819/http://voiceofsandiego.org/2008/06/24/battling-oligarchs-and-parkinsons-the-great-resurrections-of-george-gorton-2/</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Monday, June 23, 2008</span>&nbsp;| George Gorton prepared for death.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He was on the run from the terror of his diagnosis: Parkinson’s disease. He reached a small village on Mexico’s Caribbean coast called Tulum, the site of ancient ruins where the Mayans were thought to have worshiped the Declining God, and tried to conquer that terror.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What the doctor had told him brought the pieces together into an unmanageable truth: the shaking hands, the dull aches, the tingling lips, the inexplicable dread of answering the door for the pizza guy.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A panicked Gorton became consumed with the notion that he was in the last decade of his life.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He fled to Yucatan: The sixties hipster turned modern-day kingmaker, always with a mustache, always with a joke, stout like the high school wrestler he used to be. And so he prayed. He fasted. He meditated and did yoga. He tried to come to terms with death, death by debilitating disease.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He had a life’s worth of experiences to draw on. He’d clawed back from Watergate and plotted the triumphs of San Diego’s most famous politician, a man who’d be mayor, senator, governor and even presidential candidate, Pete Wilson. He’d become the international political consultant extraordinaire, very secretly pulling the strings in some of the world’s youngest democracies, invisibly sweeping Russian President Boris Yeltsin across the finish line and quietly greeting Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega to plot the Central American nation’s future.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He’d authored the real-life story that transformed Arnold Schwarzenegger from a movie star into a political force. Along the way, he helped orchestrate some of politics’ most divisive campaigns: Richard Nixon’s 1972 reelection bid and the 1994 passage of Proposition 187, which denied social services to illegal immigrants. &nbsp;</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And when he wasn’t hoisting others into positions of extreme power, he was off in some hidden corner of the world, learning Toltec traditions in Teotihuacan or Buddhism in Thailand.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But this trip to Mexico in 1997 was different.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I more than resigned myself to Parkinson’s,” he says. “I made a decision that I was going to have more fun dying than anybody had before.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Only, he didn’t get worse, like most people with Parkinson’s do. More than a decade later, the sharp, cutting pain in his face and arms has dulled. In the past year, his gregariousness has returned. He recently wowed himself by holding conversation all night at a dinner party. He watched his own hands wield chopsticks for the first time in years.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The 61-year-old Gorton has even agreed to work on a 2010 ballot initiative. His fear of death has subsided.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He wonders, too, if he even has traditional Parkinson’s. He’s had creeping suspicions that he was poisoned in Russia.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">One of the President’s Men</span>&nbsp;| President Richard Nixon geared up for his 1972 reelection underneath a new reality. Youth was king in politics. In 1971, the 26th Amendment lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 in response to the Vietnam War, and the Republican Party worried it would lose out on the youth vote.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A 20-something <b>San Diego State alumnus</b> with long hair, a Fu Manchu and a coy smile was just the guy to serve as national college director for the Committee to Reelect the President.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Gorton already had a history of pulling off such youth campaigns at the time, wooing the campus women to support his candidate in a New York senate race and getting them, in turn, to woo the campus men. Later, he held keg parties on the Mission Beach boardwalk to promote Pete Wilson’s successful first run for San Diego mayor.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For Nixon, Gorton oversaw campaign staffers in 38 states.</span> Among his tasks: learn more about antiwar activists that were holding a peace vigil in front of the White House and find out if there were plans for violent protests at the Republican National Convention in Miami.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>He paid Theodore Brill, a 20-year-old George Washington University student, $150 a week to go undercover and infiltrate the group. The payments to Brill were reportedly made in cash and checks from Gorton’s personal account and weren’t included in campaign disclosures.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Along the campaign trail, fellow staffers handed Gorton sheets of paper folded in half with his name on the bottom. That way, he could sign them, authorize something, and never know what it was.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nixon won the 1972 election with Gorton’s help. He got a job in the administration. His dreams of becoming a senator, governor or even president seemed to be falling into place.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Then Watergate hit.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The story started with the break-in at the Watergate Hotel and unfolded into a wider scandal that left a permanent mark on American politics. By 1973, there had already been criminal convictions, though Nixon wouldn’t resign for another year and a half.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Watergate’s dark pall finally spread directly to Gorton in March 1973 when he got a call from&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Washington Post</em>&nbsp;reporter Bob Woodward.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The front-page story that ran on March 11 titled “GW Student Spied for GOP,” under the famous byline of Woodward and Carl Bernstein named the 25-year-old Gorton as the man who hired and paid a local student to spy on activists.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Spying is a funny way to describe” what Brill did, Gorton told the&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Post</em>, but admitted the clandestine operation was the only way to get information on the activists. “It was a part of my job to know what all of youth was thinking,” Gorton tried to convince Woodward.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Brill said he was fired by Gorton two days after the original news of the Watergate break-in broke.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Brill’s fraternity brother told the newspaper that Brill was paid James Bond-style. Once, he was told to meet a woman with a red dress, a white carnation and a newspaper to be paid. Another time, he was told to go to a bookstore, where he would be handed a book with payment inside. Both Brill and Gorton denied this account.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Woodward and Bernstein’s story vaporized Gorton’s golden resume.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Five days later, the&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Washington Post</em>&nbsp;published an editorial that, as Gorton puts it, “said I was corrupting America’s youth.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Department of the Interior fired him a month and a half later because of the “adverse publicity” surrounding his campaign role. The headline of the front-page&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Washington Post</em>&nbsp;story the next day: “U.S. Fires GOP Spy’s Paymaster.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>George H.W. Bush, at the time Republican National Committee chairman, held a press conference banishing Gorton from party headquarters and the party itself,</b> Gorton says.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the time, the events of the 1972 election didn’t even seem real. “We all joked that the attorney general would be good company if we went to jail,” Gorton says now. “Well, the fucking attorney general went to jail.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He was never fined or charged for his activities on the Nixon campaign. But it wasn’t just his career that was in shambles. His girlfriend dumped him. His friends disappeared. He grew ashamed of himself. “I thought of myself as a shady character,” he says. It began a downward spiral that didn’t end for years.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It was,” he says, “a very dark period of my life.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Heading Back to San Diego</span>&nbsp;| Dishonored in Washington, Gorton limped out to the opposite corner of the country.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He worked odd jobs, interning under an 18-year-old boss at HomeFederal Savings and Loan. Gorton hawked a recording of the Winnie the Pooh song sung by Mike Curb, who would eventually become the state lieutenant governor, to radio stations.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And he slunk around town, burdened by his conscience.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The first thing I thought of when I woke up was Watergate,” he says. “The last thing I thought of when I went to sleep was Watergate.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He scratched his way back into politics, joining Gerald Ford’s 1976 presidential campaign as press secretary for his friend Jack Ford, the candidate’s son. A strapping young bachelor, Ford was like a rock star on the campaign trail, drawing fawning fans and appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone shirtless and barefoot.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The younger Ford and Gorton returned to San Diego after the election and bought a group of small North County community newspapers that included the&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Del Mar News-Press</em>. To help them run the paper, they recruited Gorton’s girlfriend, a woman named Susan Golding.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorton had a romantic idea of the life of a newspaper owner, one that was quickly shattered by the workaday struggles he faced. “I thought a publisher got to strut and act important,” Gorton says. “But it’s about fixing the typesetter, spending a bunch of money and begging people to do things.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2008/06/23/news/SBdelmarnewspress062308.txt" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><img src="https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/wp-content/uploads/app/storyart/newspress.jpg" align="right" border="0" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; max-width: 100%; height: auto;" /></a>At the newspaper, the guy who felt maligned by the media from his bout with Watergate now found himself on the other side of the printing press, with a newfound vengeance for ethical journalism.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We thought we were&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">The New York Times</em>&nbsp;of Del Mar,” he says.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He rejoiced over the little scoops the paper sniffed out, like the time the paper photographed a camp of illegal immigrants living in Del Mar. His enthusiasm mirrored the excitement the cub reporters there had for covering the happenings in North County.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even as his life brightened, Gorton remained angry inside. He’d inherited his father’s temper. He used anger to manage people, yelling out orders to a room of campaign staffers, only to have to go back to apologize later.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">California in the 1970s bred a movement known as est Training, a self-awareness seminar popularized by stars like John Denver and Yoko Ono that taught taking responsibility for one’s life and experiences. Gorton and Golding attended a San Diego installment of the seminar. Skeptical, Gorton went to expose it as a touchy-feely rip-off.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I figured I’d stand up right at the right time and let them have it,” he says. “But they let me have it first.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the sessions, trainees were directed to find a moment in their lives, a transformative moment, and go back to it, to smell it, to feel it again, to see it from another perspective. Sometimes those memories carried waves of emotion or nausea. Est Training gained notoriety from news reports and hearsay about trainees crying and vomiting during the sessions.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He chose to relive Watergate. But instead, his estranged father appeared to him. Gorton went to a phone and called his father and told him he loved him.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The experience lifted him higher in his rise from the ashes of Watergate.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Golding soon began her own political ascent. She eyed a vacant City Council seat and Gorton helped her get appointed to fill it — placing her one step closer to her eventual role as mayor of San Diego.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Noriega’s Call</span>&nbsp;| As the 1980s came, a new era was opening around the world, and old economic and political cultures were collapsing. In places like Latin America and Eastern Europe, military dictators and Communist leaders were being replaced by the uneasy foundations of democracy.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 1984, it looked to be Panama’s time. Its long-time dictator, Gen. Omar Torrijos, had been killed in a mysterious plane crash. Military-backed presidents had come and gone. Gen. Manuel Noriega rose to power.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before his death, Torrijos had promised to hold democratic elections as part of the 1978 treaty, negotiated with President Jimmy Carter, that returned control of the Panama Canal to Panama.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As Gorton tells it, Hamilton Jordan, Carter’s former chief of staff, reminded Noriega of his predecessor’s promise. The general abided, but said he’d need some American help putting together an election and running a candidate — and he didn’t just want Democrats to help. He needed Republicans, too. The consultants’ job was to find an acceptable candidate to run in the election.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorton got the call, and he accepted. He and the other Americans were brought in around customs so that no one detected their presence. There, they met Noriega. The general wore a white jumpsuit with sequins and had a dog in his hand, Gorton says.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>As a suitable candidate, the consultants eventually settled on Nicky Barletta, a vice president at the World Bank in New York and former Torrijos advisor, who led a military-supported alliance of political parties.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorton’s task: Campaign mail. It proved a difficult endeavor in a country with an informal address system. His mail pieces weren’t getting delivered. But Gorton came up with a solution: Find the guy who delivered the electricity bill and follow him.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Barletta eventually won, but not without credible evidence of tainted results. A 1987 U.S. government report said the United States acknowledged that the election results were questionable but that Barletta’s victory was an important step for Panama. The win was seen as a preservation of the military’s power in Panama. But only a year later, after Barletta sought an investigation into the killing of a Noriega critic, the president was forced out of office by the general, according to the report.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Gorton’s work had again brought him into the middle of historical controversy. Five years after the election, United States troops invaded Panama and, in an armed struggle, captured Noriega. He was brought to the United States, where he was convicted and imprisoned on charges of cocaine trafficking and money laundering.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">One-Suitcase Free Spirits</span>&nbsp;| With career success came tremendous stress for Gorton.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He was plugged in, attached, tied to news reports and telephones. His workaholic tendencies flared. With a foothold again in politics and influence, Gorton worked zealously, frequently managing several candidates at the same time.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That was the case in 1983, when Gorton ran around Election Central at Golden Hall in downtown San Diego, checking in on his several dogs in the race. That night, a friend introduced George to Terry Barlin, a San Diego lobbyist.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“He certainly did not know who I was, but I certainly had heard of the famous George Gorton — George was sort of the man of the town,” she says.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He asked her out that night. They dated for a while, and didn’t date for a while. He got engaged to someone else. Barlin decided she didn’t want to let him go, and she didn’t. He broke off his engagement with the other woman.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Gorton and Barlin launched a business partnership,</b> a consultancy for companies seeking permission from the city or state to do business there. They were swamped. And in love — they married in 1985 and she added Gorton to her last name.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Then, Gorton got a sobering assessment from his doctor: He was a workaholic and if he kept it up, he was going to die. And so the Gortons decided they would work in 18-month election cycles and then close the doors, sell the cars, lease the house and travel for seven or eight months.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorton realized he made 70 percent of his money in even-numbered years. He left that other 30 percent behind to travel the world.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They’d travel by whim, choosing their next destination based on the list at the airport of the departing flights that day. They were one-suitcase free spirits, disconnected from the quotidian worries of political consulting, the which-suit-to-wear, what-tie-goes-with-this questions. They sought the next great spot to swim, the next locale where government and law enforcement were thin and passion was thick.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Eighty-five was magic,” Gorton says, “drifting from skinny-dipping hole to skinny-dipping hole.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Where in San Diego, Gorton was plugged in to his calendar and the latest gadgets, on vacation, he moved slowly. If he had a letter to mail, it would take the better part of the morning to get into town. In San Diego, running that errand would take four-and-a-half minutes, he jokes.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The change of pace pervaded even Gorton’s thoughts. He had been, even halfway across the world, wondering and worrying about his work back in the United States. But in Thailand, he learned to stop his mind, to quiet the frenetic internal chatter that he said was wasting his mental energy.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One night, as the couple walked on the sand on Koh Samui, they noticed a monkey, tethered to a platform. The monkey swooped down and picked up a cat. The two animals looked at each other, extended their paws to acquaint themselves with each other.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And that was the moment Gorton’s spiritual life came to the surface.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I wish I had time to sit here and watch this,” Gorton thought to himself. He realized he had nothing but time for months.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Spiritually ravenous, the pair spent 10 days in a Buddhist monastery, separated from their possessions, separated from each other, discouraged from making eye contact, and left to meditate and fast.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They went on to Saipan, Bangkok, India and Rome. They bought a Volkswagen camper in Amsterdam and traveled to Spain.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorton returned to the United States and to his hard-hitting political work. Some of his acquaintances had warned him he’d lose momentum or gain a reputation for being unreliable by taking off to travel around the world. But he made more money in 1986 than he’d ever made before, and took off again in 1987.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“George is an interesting person who periodically wants to do his thing,” Golding says. “If you wanted George and his talents, you accepted George as he was.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As stressful as the discrepancy was between trying to be peaceful, meditative, caring for others in the odd-numbered years and running cutthroat campaigns and negative commercials in the evens, Gorton held onto both.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I balance my life in extremes,” he says.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even now, Gorton’s friends in the spiritual world don’t understand how he’s a Republican political consultant. The political people he runs with “can’t understand what the hell I’m doing in the spiritual world,” he says.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But to the closest of his associates, his spirituality informs his work.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I think that the fact that George has demonstrated this extraordinary prowess in the world of politics and business, it is not mysterious to me at all that he also demonstrated this extraordinary prowess in the world of formlessness,” Barlin Gorton says. “What’s extraordinary about George is that he can see the connection.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">The Emergence of a Long-Lost Son</span>&nbsp;| In 1989, Gorton returned home from a trip and heard the voice of his high-school sweetheart, Linda Kooiman, on his answering machine. That wasn’t unusual. The two checked in on each other a few times a year.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the message, Kooiman left a number for him to call her back. He dialed it.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Hi, George, how are you?” she said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Fine,” he replied.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Would you like to talk to your son?” she asked.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She passed the phone to Steven Moore, a 21-year-old student at the University of Oklahoma. Gorton heard his voice and couldn’t breathe.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorton knew he had a son, but didn’t expect to ever meet him. When Kooiman was pregnant two decades earlier, she asked the 21-year-old Gorton if he wanted to get married. He refused. “I was a young man in a hurry,” he says. They put the baby up for adoption.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I didn’t have any framework for him,” Gorton says. “I didn’t know whether I should say I love you. I wanted two minutes to pull myself together.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moore had just been through this ordeal days earlier when Kooiman tracked him down. “For me it was just like, another parent? Bring it on,” he says.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moore told his new father that it would be fine. After a couple of minutes, Gorton asked if he could call Moore back the next day after collecting himself.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The two got along famously. Moore came to California a few months later to meet Kooiman, and visited San Diego to spend some time with Gorton. Father and son looked each other up and down — the ponytailed, motorcycle-riding Amnesty International volunteer and journalism major, and his father, a Republican political consultant.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They sat across a table from each other for hours, discovering similarities seen and unseen.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moore played the trumpet; Gorton played the trumpet. Moore lettered in one sport, wrestling; Gorton lettered in one sport, wrestling. And even more specific — Moore had tickets to a Rolling Stones concert and didn’t go; Gorton had tickets to a Rolling Stones concert and didn’t go.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“What do you say to this person who you’ve just met who’s your father?” Moore says. “There’s this sense of closeness. We both noticed at the same time that we were doing the same gestures. This person I’ve just met is mirroring me!”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moore returned to California for an internship on the 1990 Wilson campaign for governor.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The family business was hard to resist, and Moore ultimately became Gorton’s business partner, inextricably linked to the work Gorton pursued in the United States and around the world. He is Gorton’s best friend, his frequent travel companion to Burning Man, and very much a Gorton despite his different last name.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s almost like cheating, you know,” Gorton says. “You get all of this extra love and you didn’t have to do anything for it.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moore’s adopted father had died when he was 15. “I was sort of in the market for a father figure,” Moore says. “George ended up being a big-brother figure.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Barlin Gorton gave birth to a son, A.J., the summer after that first phone call. With Wilson’s 1990 gubernatorial win, the couple moved to Sacramento with the transition team, and bought a motor home to travel the western United States in the odd-numbered 1991.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But as Gorton’s career stretched towards its pinnacle, Barlin Gorton placed greater priority on staying home with A.J. They divorced in 1992.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unlike with Moore, Gorton has played a significant role in A.J.’s youth. He’s been known to campaign in San Diego in the morning, fly up to Arizona for one of A.J’s football games, and fly back to continue campaign operations that evening.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He’s effusive in describing Barlin Gorton’s influence in his life, the lobbyist he met at Election Central that night in 1983. She’s one in the cast of strong, successful women that Gorton married or dated throughout the years.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I revel in the power of the women I’m with,” he says.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Wilson’s Big Comeback</span>&nbsp;| Gov. Pete Wilson’s 1994 reelection campaign looked hopeless. His first term had been cursed. The state economy imploded and the budget suffered from a multi-billion dollar deficit. The Oakland Hills fire had burned out of control.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And the incumbent was 23 percentage points behind challenger Kathleen Brown.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Gorton, Wilson’s political architect, searched for a tough issue to press Brown on, and he found one: immigration. Its manifestation: <b>Wilson’s support for Proposition 187. The initiative, which ran parallel to the governor’s race in 1994, denied social services, health care and education to illegal immigrants. It wasn’t a tough choice, Gorton says; time and again, it was the resounding issue that came out of focus groups.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Wilson’s campaign concocted threatening and dark commercials featuring immigrants crossing the border.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the end, Gorton orchestrated a remarkable turnaround. Wilson won by 19 percentage points. The feat landed him the MVP award from the American Association of Political Consultants.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Wilson’s 1994 campaign became synonymous with Proposition 187, which is often cited as the catalyst in alienating Latino voters from the California Republican Party. It passed, but was ultimately challenged in court and never instituted</b>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bob Mulholland, longtime California Democratic Party campaign advisor, says Gorton and Wilson made a boogeyman out of the illegal immigrant. “Gorton and Wilson knew what they were doing and milked it as much as possible,” he says. “And George Gorton should be embarrassed about that for the rest of his life.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Clint Reilly ran Brown’s campaign. He said Wilson and Gorton thrived because of a trust borne out of their lengthy history. Consultants don’t often have the luxury of that kind of long-term relationship, Reilly said, and it helped them throughout Wilson’s various campaigns.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There were many of them. Wilson successfully ran for San Diego mayor three times, lost a governor’s race in 1978, and won two terms each as senator and governor. There was also an aborted attempt for president in 1996.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“In some ways George was almost indistinguishable from Pete Wilson and Pete Wilson was almost indistinguishable from George Gorton,” Reilly says. “It’s a little bit like Rove and Bush, a long-term relationship of trust.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In that campaign, Gorton displayed the traits that helped him transcend the role of typical political operative. He showed open-mindedness and an ability to juggle egos and to silently sit at a table and listen without foisting his opinions on everyone else, said Joe Shumate, longtime Gorton partner, who called the 1994 campaign “the best situation in my 30 years of this nonsense.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Issues of race and ethnicity cropped up again when Wilson primed himself for a presidential run with an anti-affirmative action message in the state of California. With Proposition 187 and the affirmative action push under his belt, the politician was accused of stoking white fears to win votes.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For Gorton, days spent living real life, not just plotting political moves, lent deeper understanding of the issue he’d worked to define for California in the campaign.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One day, after the campaign was over, a day laborer worked at Gorton’s house. He saw a framed&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Los Angeles Times</em>&nbsp;story about Gorton, titled “Pete’s Guru.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“He hates us,” the Latino worker said of Wilson.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“No, he doesn’t,” Gorton replied.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Yes, he hates us,” the man repeated.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Later, the two traipsed with a case of beer to a spot under a bridge. The men cracked open the cans and discussed life as an immigrant. The worker described the Catch-22 plaguing illegal immigrants: the impossibility of obtaining car insurance without a driver’s license, yet the troubles faced when such drivers were pulled over and found to have no insurance.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Gorton went to sleep that night with an altered perspective.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To some in his political and business circles, Gorton’s the complex topic. Long-time friend and local political figure David Malcolm says Gorton’s always done the opposite of what he should do to be financially successful, not marketing himself and pulling himself from the power circles so frequently to disappear into some far-off country.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“My advice to him is always that happiness is no further away than your own nose if you know how to recognize it,” Malcolm says.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And Moore admits that the different sides of Gorton might not always seem to add up. But, he says, his father is driven by a belief in individual freedoms. “If you sit with George Gorton long enough he makes you see there’s a logical intersection between being a hippie wanderer and a free market champion,” Moore says.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The intersection of Gorton’s politics and spirituality never came as close as they did one day in 1995.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He went to Barlin Gorton’s house to pick up A.J. An unimposing man sat in her home and said little.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When Gorton left, the man offered an ominous warning to his host. “You better get him involved in our group,” the man said, “because he’s about to go visit hell.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 36px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Tomorrow:</span>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2008/06/24/news/gorton-two1062408.txt" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Part II</a>: Russia, Parkinson’s and Ninja Camping.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Please contact the writers directly at&nbsp;<a href="mailto:kelly.bennett@voiceofsandiego.org" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">kelly.bennett@voiceofsandiego.org</a>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a href="mailto:andrew.donohue@voiceofsandiego.org" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">andrew.donohue@voiceofsandiego.org</a>&nbsp;with your thoughts, ideas, personal stories or tips</font></span></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20141019111819/http://voiceofsandiego.org/2008/06/24/battling-oligarchs-and-parkinsons-the-great-resurrections-of-george-gorton-2/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://web.archive.org/web/20141019111819/http://voiceofsandiego.org/2008/06/24/battling-oligarchs-and-parkinsons-the-great-resurrections-of-george-gorton-2/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>tuesday, June 24, 2008</strong>&nbsp;| For two decades, George Gorton had served Pete Wilson as a key architect of the politician's rise from San Diego mayor to U.S. senator to California governor.</font></p><div id="in-story" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div id="tncms-region-ads-in-story" class="tncms-region-ads"><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 1995, Wilson and team launched a run for president. A generation after the weight of Watergate crushed Gorton's career, he readied his return to the national stage.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Then, one morning, a headline in the&nbsp;<em>Sacramento Bee</em>&nbsp;smashed that notion: Wilson had hired an outside consultant with national experience to head the campaign, shoving Gorton aside.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorton had been told nothing. He was fuming and ready to blow.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This was the man who'd helped build the Pete Wilson political machine and sculpt a generation of San Diego politics. He'd helped elect President Richard Nixon in 1972, only to be caught in the jaws of Watergate and have to spend years fighting his way through a personal and professional hell to recover.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This was the man who'd been called upon to fly to Panama and meet with Gen. Manuel Noriega to help plot the country's beginning steps toward democracy.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When Gorton found his long-lost son, he even roped him into the Wilson-for-office campaign family.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And now, again, it seemed as if everything he'd worked for was being taken from him. But as he headed toward Wilson's office, a calm enveloped him. Gorton wasn't the same man he was 22 years ago when a headline in the&nbsp;<em>Washington Post</em>&nbsp;ruined him. He'd matured. He'd found family and spirituality.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And now he had Don Miguel Ruiz.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Days before that&nbsp;<em>Bee</em>&nbsp;story arrived on the region's doorstep, Gorton had gone to ex-wife Terry Barlin Gorton's home to pick up his son, A.J. An unimposing man sat inside Barlin Gorton's home, saying little until Gorton left. "You better get him involved in our group," the man told Barlin Gorton, "because he's about to go visit hell."</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The man was Don Miguel, a spiritual guide whose teachings were based on ancient, pre-Columbian wisdom.</b> He attempted to push people toward happiness and love by adjusting how they view themselves and the world around them.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorton was invited to one of Don Miguel's weekend retreats. There, in a role-playing exercise, Don Miguel put Judas on trial for the betrayal of Jesus Christ. He picked Gorton to play Judas and Barlin Gorton as the prosecutor. With the end of the hours-long trial exercise came a new perspective on the traditional story of epic betrayal. Jesus planned to be crucified and Judas was only helping him, according to Don Miguel's twist.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"There is no such thing as betrayal," Don Miguel said. He looked directly at Gorton. Don't take anything personally, the man taught. People do things out of their own created perception of reality, not to hurt you.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"George, your issue is betrayal," he said. "You will be betrayed. There is no betrayal."</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That's great, Gorton thought, but I've got to get going.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The next day, the&nbsp;<em>Bee</em>&nbsp;story hit. And as Gorton stormed over to Wilson's office, he suddenly heard Don Miguel's words: "There is no betrayal."</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Pete was just doing what he was doing for his own reasons," Gorton says. "I was indulging in a form of self-pity." He walked into Wilson's office and calmly said he was leaving. "I'm a captain, not a first mate," he said.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorton didn't just buy into Don Miguel's world. He inhaled it. The political consultant ascended in the ranks of Don Miguel's disciples, becoming "nagual man," the No. 2 spot in an organization that produces self-help books, sells DVDs and guides spiritual trips to Teotihuacan, Mexico. Gorton is named in the acknowledgements of Don Miguel's best-selling book, "The Four Agreements."</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Don Miguel brought Gorton's spiritual journey full circle. Spiritual training in new-age conferences and at Buddhist temples in Thailand had woken him up and taught him to balance a pursuit of peace with the high-powered, high-stress, cutthroat world of politics.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Don Miguel showed him how to love. "You don't feel love from other people," Gorton says now. "You feel love from yourself."</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The meeting with Don Miguel wove a new thread into a pattern in Gorton's life: No matter what he did, he cobbled together an unlikely but illustrious band of associates.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In politics, he worked alongside Boris Yeltsin and Arnold Schwarzenegger. One ex-girlfriend became mayor of San Diego; another served a key post at the United Nations. When he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, he was treated by the man who had unlocked an entire chest of the disease's secrets in the 1980s.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He demonstrated an unusual stability despite suffering a normally debilitating invasion of Parkinson's, a resistance so shocking to him that he's begun to suspect that he was the victim of a poisoning attempt by political opponents in Russia.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But in 1995, Wilson's move left Gorton without something he'd long been able to depend on: a Wilson campaign. The political consultant's most dependable client over the decades had essentially canned him. Wilson's presidential bid eventually failed anyway.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So he did what he always did when there wasn't an election — he traveled. This time, he headed to Bali with Don Miguel. There, he accepted his next job by sending a simple fax: "I want in."</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong style="">Spinning Boris</strong>&nbsp;| Boris Yeltsin prepared for his first reelection campaign in 1996 after winning the first post-Soviet presidential election in 1991. His prospects looked dim.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He polled in the single digits. The economy was bad and war consumed Chechnya. People saw Yeltsin as a good guy surrounded by corrupt bureaucrats and businessmen.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In the years since communism had fallen, a small clique of former KGB agents and would-be tycoons had been the first to the table as a massive nationalized economy was broken up and passed out to private hands. The so-called "oligarchs" had grown rich snapping up what was once property of the state, the banks, car companies and television stations.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The election could've decided their fates. The Communist candidate condemned capitalism, blamed the West for the Soviet Union's downfall, and said the Soviet states would reunite voluntarily. He led the early polls.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Talk of cancelling the election swirled, and the oligarchs had been specifically called on to pony up cash for Yeltsin's campaign. An idea surfaced on how to spend that money: American political consultants.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the same time, Gorton and consulting partner Joe Shumate milled about their offices, in the wake of Wilson's failed bid. The campaign had collapsed before it really started — a throat condition made it difficult for the candidate to speak early on and raising money was tough.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The office phone rang and Shumate picked up. A Russian-American businessman who lived in the United States had new work for the trio of Gorton, Shumate and pollster Dick Dresner on another presidential campaign — Boris Yeltsin's.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">No one really took it seriously.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>That is, until their suitors kept the Russian consulate open after hours so that Dresner could get his visa. Dresner flew to Moscow and put together a proposal for $250,000 plus expenses. It was a secret engagement; the consultants would tell people they were in Russia selling thin-screen televisions.</b></font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorton digested the details in Bali and sent Dresner a simple fax: "I want in."</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They flew to Moscow, and as they settled in, the consultants quickly came to the conclusion that the campaign was being run all wrong. Pictures of a stoic, unsmiling Yeltsin adorned campaign posters. He was presented as czar-like. Hands weren't being shaken. Babies weren't being kissed. There were no photo-ops.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the Americans were brought in by just one of many groups competing for Yeltsin's ear. No one who had a direct line into the president seemed to care or even know they were there. For the first weeks, they stayed in the hotel and did little. They weren't allowed to leave the hotel without chaperones. They contemplated leaving. When they were allowed to offer advice, no one listened.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>They'd never even met the man they were working to get elected. No one got to meet him. Everything went through his daughter, Tatyana Yeltsin Dyachenko.</b></font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an effort to help prepare the president for a major address, the American consultants offered Dyachenko a vision: a short, quick address with a handful of talking points in a room filled with a young, diverse group. It would be a lively departure from Yeltsin's standard long, droning speeches, presented to a room of old, bored government insiders.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As soon as the consultants began watching the address, they knew they'd been ignored again. It was standard Yeltsin. Long, and delivered to a stodgy, lifeless crowd.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorton felt he had to do something to get his message across. He reached for one of the political consultant's greatest tools: The perception analyzer. The consultants put together a test group, handed dials to the residents and played a tape of Yeltsin's speech. When the residents' opinions were good, they cranked the dial one way. When they were bad, they cranked the dial the other way. A screen displayed the results.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorton sat Dyachenko down and had her watch the voters' reactions to her father's speech. When the camera flashed to the frozen crowd, the analyzer shot down. When Yeltsin droned on and on, it did the same.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The speech bombed. Shumate had never seen anything like it.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>It was a major breakthrough; the consultants now had the conduit they needed into Yeltsin and a plan. They flew to the Russian boondocks and conducted focus groups in barns. Outside of the bubble of Moscow, they learned that Yeltsin's messages weren't resonatin</b>g.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He boasted that he'd cut inflation by 50 percent, given land back to farmers and given back pay to workers of state-owned factories. But voters either didn't get it or didn't care. Voters believed the government existed just to make people in Moscow money. And Yeltsin had a reputation for showing up drunk to public events.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The consultants found that voters were very resistant to change. No matter how bad things were, they feared they could get worse. They preferred very slow change to the risk of sudden change.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And they were afraid of civil unrest if they elected a new government.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"My guy was drunk, corrupt. It was bad vs. evil," Gorton says.</b></font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And, Shumate says, Gorton was the first person to understand how the voters were thinking.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The campaign turned around. The Americans felt their ideas were working. Yeltsin went out among the people. He smiled. His campaign stoked fears of a civil war. His numbers shot up. Even with the consultants' secrecy, hints of their presence could be found. "Yeltsin is running a slick Western-style campaign the likes of which Russia has never seen," CNN declared at the time.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Then, the candidate got confident. He publicly predicted victory in the primary, saying he'd get the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff. He danced at youth rock 'n' roll rallies. That was a problem with older voters.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Those close to Yeltsin started to get nervous, according to Gorton. The polling was notoriously unreliable in Russia at the time because so many Russians didn't have phones. The sponsor told Gorton to get Yeltsin to call off the election.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lots of money, and maybe even lives, Gorton thought, were at stake as Russia attempted to get its footing in democracy.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He authored a memo, delivered to Dyachenko, essentially defying the wishes of the oligarchs and explaining why the election was winnable and how it would be done. It was the first time he's ever guaranteed victory.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>That's when Gorton says he began fearing for his life, afraid those who wanted the election cancelled would come after him. He says the liaison between the consultants and the sponsor told him that the consultants would all be killed — as would Dyachenko — because of the memo.</b></font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Their pollster refused to give them their latest batch of numbers. Gorton piled all the furniture against the door in their hotel room to guard against intruders. His son, Steven Moore, helped. Their guards and cars changed. Gorton and Dresner settled on a place to meet in an emergency, Gorky Park.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He called home frequently and left messages with his own answering machine or with his ex-wives, describing where he was and what he was doing in case he was killed.</font></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 340px; margin: 5px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); float: right; padding: 0px 5px 0px 0px;"><tbody><tr><td valign="top"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20091205183257im/http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/storyart/knowing.jpg" width="160px" /></font></td><td valign="top"><div id="topstory" style="margin: 0px 5px;"><h1 style=""><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20091205183257/http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2008/06/24/news/SBknowingcandidates062408.txt" style="color: rgb(7, 70, 118); text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Knowing His Candidates</font></a></h1><h3 style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When it came to knowing how Susan Golding would react to polling news, George Gorton knew her better than most. They had dated for four years.&nbsp;<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20091205183257/http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2008/06/24/news/SBknowingcandidates062408.txt" style="color: rgb(7, 70, 118); text-decoration-line: none;">&nbsp;» Read more</a></font></h3></div></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Word got out that they were there. They got a call from Michael Kramer, a Time magazine reporter in Moscow. The gig was up. He was going to run the story, so they made a deal with him: He got the full, exclusive story and they would sneak him into the hotel to show him everything. Kramer just had to sit on the story until the election was over.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Election Day came, the story stayed under wraps and it looked like Gorton's worries for his own safety were for naught. Yeltsin won the primary election by 3 percent and later went on to win the runoff.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But maybe no one was in any real danger anyway. Shumate remembers things differently. He says he didn't feel threatened like others did. "I never seriously felt fear," he says.</b></font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Regardless</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, the Time story broke after the election with a front-page illustration of Yeltsin holding an American flag, and the consultants returned home stars. They hired a publicist and got ink just about everywhere. At first, denials came from Russia. Then, the consultants' roles were minimized.</span></font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><em style="">The New York Times</em>&nbsp;offered up a skeptical account of the consultants' story. The newspaper quoted Dyachenko as saying the Americans "did some work. None of it was central, either in terms of planning or strategy."</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Still, Hollywood came calling. In 2004, Showtime made a movie called "Spinning Boris." Jeff Goldblum played Gorton, whose 400-page journal served as the flick's foundation. The only order from Gorton: cut the sex scenes from the movie.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a review of the movie, Time magazine painted an unflattering picture of the consultants. "The three Americans are not especially likable — it's hard to tell their principles from mercenariness — but that's the point," it said.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Spinning Boris" also hints at a playful, and plausible, side story. Gorton appears to have helped his cause by shamelessly flirting with a married Dyachenko.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>A Battle with Disease</strong>&nbsp;| Gorton returned to the United States in 1996 a successful man, the eager and willing subject of a media circus.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But physically, he felt peculiar. His muscles were sore, which he attributed to six months of near-constant jet lag from flying so frequently between Sacramento and Moscow. His lips trembled.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He visited Barlin Gorton and A.J. She noticed he was carrying one side of his body with a slump, like someone who had a stroke. It was the first inkling of the disease that would cause Gorton to again radically change the course of his life.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He began to suffer from stabbing pains in his buttocks and face that would bring him to his knees. For a while, he was intimidated by everything, by social situations and occurrences he would never have given a second thought, like answering the door when the pizza guy came.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"What would people think would be normal for me to say?" he thought.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He developed a slight shake in his hand that made it difficult to lift a coffee mug and carry a briefcase. That's when he went to see the doctor.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Parkinson's is not itself a fatal disease, but as it progresses, it increases the sufferer's chances of falling, choking or developing pneumonia and dying. Though no neurologist told him how long he had to live, Gorton found a mention of a nine-year life expectancy in the book in the library. He told himself that's how much time he had left. Doctors aren't sure where he got that from and say Parkinson's patients aren't given such a life expectancy.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Regardless, it took all of the positive-thinking techniques in his spiritual quiver to hold it together. Resigning himself to live his last years with Parkinson's, he departed for Mexico.</b></font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For three weeks in Tulum, the site of the ruins of a Mayan walled city, Gorton prayed, fasted and meditated. Parkinson's, he knew, would reduce him to a person who was needy, to a person who would elicit pity from others, to a person who would become unrecognizable to his family and friends and to his colleague.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There, in the Yucatan, was a man who had packed to the brim his 50 years with international intrigue and U.S. political importance, passionate relationships with powerful women, surprising relationships with two sons, and a dogged pursuit for spiritual enlightenment.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And there, in the Yucatan, that man was coming to grips with his mortality.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After three weeks, he called a woman he'd been dating, Kiki Holzen, an aspiring actress with a day job in political campaigns. Gorton called and asked her if she'd join him in Mexico; she did.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One day, as they walked along the beach. "I love you," she told him.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"What do you know about love?" he said. "You're 22 years younger than me."</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He told her he had Parkinson's.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"It doesn't kill you, does it?" she said.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Yeah, it does," he said. "I have nine years."</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I'd rather have nine years with you than a lifetime with anyone else," she said.</font></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 340px; margin: 5px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); float: right; padding: 0px 5px 0px 0px;"><tbody><tr><td valign="top"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20091205183257im/http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/storyart/women.jpg" width="160px" /></font></td><td valign="top"><div id="topstory" style="margin: 0px 5px;"><h1 style=""><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20091205183257/http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2008/06/24/news/SBromance062408.txt" style="color: rgb(7, 70, 118); text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reveling in the Power of the Women He's With</font></a></h1><h3 style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perhaps the only event that has arrived with as much regularity as an election in George Gorton's life is a new love.&nbsp;<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20091205183257/http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2008/06/24/news/SBwomen062408.txt" style="color: rgb(7, 70, 118); text-decoration-line: none;">&nbsp;» Read more</a></font></h3></div></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Her words melted Gorton. At a time when he feared that no one would be willing to take care of him, Holzen stepped in. She became his third wife.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Back in California, Gorton fretted that A.J., then in grade school, would only remember a declining version of his dad. He remembered what it was like to have people feel sorry for him during Watergate and imagined living out his life in a wheelchair.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Parkinson's disease is degenerative, affecting the central nervous system and hindering speech and movement. It causes a tremor that can send limbs shooting in dramatic, uncontrolled movements, slowed reaction time, and some behavior and thinking changes. People can display Parkinson's symptoms by a genetic predisposition or by outside causes such as chemicals, toxins or trauma.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorton, his friends and family expected him to get progressively worse. And they saw that happen. He was unable to hold a coffee cup or carry his briefcase. He became so timid he agonized over what to say at dinner parties.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But, in the last six to eight months, Gorton and his friends have seen what they say is a marked improvement in his condition.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dr. J. William Langston says his patient "has done pretty darn well" after 12 years of having what Langston called a typical case of mild-to-moderate Parkinson's. The doctor attributed the apparent improvement to drug management, and says Gorton's disease is progressing very slowly, if at all.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Compared to the dramatic flailing and tremors commonly associated with Parkinson's, and especially compared to the trouble Gorton had when he was first diagnosed with the degenerative disease, his symptoms are stable.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To sit with Gorton for breakfast now is to watch a man eat machaca with a steady fork and drink from a coffee mug as he stares out at the ocean through a cafe window. To drive with him in a silver convertible through downtown San Diego, and to walk with him up the driveway to the Golden Hill house that hosts his temporary offices, is to see a man who shows none of the dramatic movements of a Parkinson's sufferer, especially not one who has had a dozen years for the disorder to take root.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But recently, Gorton and his family and friends have started to wonder if there could be another explanation for the symptoms that had appeared right after his trip to Russia.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moore says they always thought that something related to his time in Russia had triggered his symptoms. Before the Parkinson's diagnosis, Gorton had floated the theory in his mind that he was just jet-lagged from the constant flights between Moscow and Sacramento. Gorton remembered a night of celebration in Russia with his hosts when he fell on his knees a lot performing traditional Russian dances. Perhaps a combination of those could account for the pain and symptoms he had when he returned home, he had thought.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Or, there was that day, that day in Moscow, when Gorton and Moore visited the statue. A cold day, but not unusually cold. A throwaway memory of a day spent sight-seeing, but for one weird detail.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An ABC News reporter had told Moore about the statue under construction near their hotel, the President Hotel. It was a 300-foot statue of Peter the Great, the sixth tallest statue in the world. It was obscured by steel girders and construction scaffolding. The journalist told Moore the statue could be climbed and that it was worth checking out.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The next day, Moore and Gorton climbed up the statue steps, finding themselves in the company of about 15 people. As they came down from the statue, a stranger walked up next to Gorton and bumped into him.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Oh, excuse me, excuse me," Gorton said to the man. The stranger grumbled something in Russian and left.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Father and son continued their descent, walking about 20 feet before Gorton was struck by an urgent need to sit down. His fingers started tingling. He hurt. His lip trembled.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The next day he flew back to Sacramento as part of the normal rotations the consultants took. He went to the doctor, who told him he was depressed. He didn't understand the diagnosis — he was happy, making a bundle of money and at the top of his life.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorton forgot about the incident at the statue in the aftermath of Yeltsin's win. But when he was trying to figure out his illness, he became especially aware of the danger he'd been in there. Before he arrived, prominent politicians or their staff had been attacked with car bombs and acid. Assassination seemed an accepted tactic in politics.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Then, the international media erupted in late 2006 with the story of Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian dissident who grew suddenly ill and died in three weeks from lethal poisoning by radioactive plutonium-210. Litvinenko was a former employee of one of Yeltin's oligarchs.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A friend watching "Spinning Boris" grew startled at a scene where Gorton tells his Russian hosts he won't support cancelling the elections, raising their ire. The friend asked Barlin Gorton, "Do you think George could’ve been poisoned?"</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All of this was enough to catch Gorton's eye.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But, he says adamantly, he doesn’t know enough to say he definitely was poisoned. But he thinks the possibility is credible. And Moore says the day at the statue was really a forgotten memory until recently.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"You just don't necessarily expect it, until you find out that the Russians are still in the practice of poisoning people," Moore says.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Langston says the poisoning scenario is "extremely unlikely."</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Having said that, is it possible? Yeah, it's possible," he says.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In fact, Langston has first-hand experience with patients displaying Parkinson's symptoms after being injected with outside chemicals, albeit in completely different circumstances.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There have been several documented cases of people displaying Parkinson's symptoms after being injected with a specific chemical known as MPTP. And Langston, the founder of the Sunnyvale-based Parkinson's Institute, discovered that link, which revolutionized the medical community's understanding and treatment of Parkinson's.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He found that link in 1982 when heroin addicts started showing up in hospitals in northern California, their muscles "frozen" and their symptoms closely resembling an extreme form of parkinsonism.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A local heroin dealer, in an attempt to make the drug, had mistakenly created the dangerous chemical MPTP and sold it as heroin. The addicts had unknowingly injected themselves with a chemical that gave them Parkinson's-like symptoms.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The discovery gave researchers the ability to induce Parkinson's symptoms in laboratory animals and then test different drugs and treatments.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Langston says a decade ago he heard several reports of a rumor that a diplomat or a spy had been injected with MPTP, poisoned after falling out of favor in Russia. That case wasn't proven or documented, he says, but he received several phone calls about it and heard the rumor more than once.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There'd be no way to test Gorton now, a dozen years later, for the chemical, Langston says, because it would wash out of the body within a couple of months of the exposure. The only way to know if someone truly has Parkinson's disease, or just symptoms brought about by some outside force, is to perform an autopsy after they die.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But, it is "conceivable" that Gorton could have been poisoned, Langston says. And, Gorton's relatively stable symptoms fit the parameters of an MPTP case.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorton has floated the poisoning idea with Langston.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I would just kind of smile a little bit and say, 'Well, it's possible,'" Langston says. "I don't think that's what it is, but can I rule it out? Nope. And with his colorful life, who knows?"</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Living with His Symptoms</strong>&nbsp;| Gorton owns homes in Sacramento and Sedona, but he doesn't live in either. Instead, home is a recreational vehicle, nicknamed "Harvey the RV." He takes the 37-foot brown motor home up and down the coast and all around. It's never clear exactly where Gorton's going to end up from day to day.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">His San Diego roots remain deep.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"George has never really 100 percent left San Diego," says his former girlfriend and mayor of San Diego, Susan Golding. "He's very true to himself. He's a barefoot beach boy, and he's never changed."</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On a recent springtime afternoon, Harvey is parked next to the grass at Mission Bay. Gorton calls it "ninja camping," because he gets around the no-overnight-parking rule by driving around between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m..</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He jumps out the front door, barefoot, to greet visitors. His black gambler hat rolls off into the grass.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Inside, discussing his illness, he hops up and down on one foot on the white bearskin rug to show how much he's improved. He patiently works a corkscrew into a bottle of chardonnay, as if to dare his visitors to think he's completely healed.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">World techno music bumps. His jeans are hastily cuffed and at points, as he talks, he digs his toes into the rug by the sink. When he's asked if he throws parties there, in the RV, Gorton quickly hangs glowing lights and puts Venetian carnival masks on his visitors' heads.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He pulls out a laptop to show off photos from renowned annual festival Burning Man. One of the photos appears too scandalous. Startled, he slams the laptop shut and changes the topic.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With Gorton, conversation always eventually shifts back to politics. His personal pursuits and illness haven't completely shunted him off of the campaign trail.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He was the first consultant Arnold Schwarzenegger hired when he contemplated the leap from Hollywood to Sacramento in 1999. Polling showed people liked Schwarzenegger tremendously, but they weren't ready to elect him to office.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So Gorton dreamed up Proposition 49 to introduce Arnold to the public, and in 2002 California residents saw images of Arnold the politician surrounded by children and pushing for the passage of his signature after-school funding initiative. A year later, then-Gov. Gray Davis was recalled and Schwarzenegger became the latest celebrity politician.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now, nearly a decade after the Terminator first hired Gorton, the political consultant proudly sports his T3 jacket with the embroidered message, "George, thank you for your help. Arnold," on the inside.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2005, after he left the governor's team, Gorton returned to his old stomping grounds to command Steve Francis' first run for San Diego mayor. Francis went from a no-name to a contender in a matter of weeks with the help of $2 million of his own cash, but didn't make it out of the primary. Francis fell short again this year, without Gorton at his side.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Clint Reilly, a longtime former Democratic political consultant, says the state has shifted decidedly Democratic since Wilson's last term as governor, and part of that was Gorton's departure from state politics, he says. And when a Republican, Schwarzenegger, did rise, it was with Gorton's help.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Few people understand how to get Republicans elected in California," Reilly says. "The Republican Party desperately needs George, to match George up with a candidate who can win."</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He's now working to create an online school for political consultants, a place where he can pass on the techniques he had to hone outside of school — like how to run a negative television commercial.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite issuing a perpetual threat of retirement, he still takes calls — and considers the offers on the other end of the line.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I think George's work was always his mistress," says his longtime friend David Malcolm. "And George was never able to give up his mistress — of being part of creating political leaders."</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The 61-year-old Gorton remains the flirtatious type. And he's not really so done with campaigns, after all. On a new ballot initiative he hints at, he still holds his cards, in Gorton style, close to his chest. But he can't hide the twinkle in his eye even as he keeps mum about what the state's voters might soon hear about.</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"This business is like sex," he says. "You always want to do it one more time."</font></p><p style="line-height: 18.75px; padding-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Please contact the writers directly&nbsp;...</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=
</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">off bs</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="" work="Work" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">&nbsp;over thirty years, George Gorton has helped lead national campaigns in Russia, Panama, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Canada and The United States. His efforts in bringing Boris Yeltsin back from the politically dead in Russia became a major motion picture (Spinning Boris) where George, the central figure in the movie, by name, is played by Jeff Goldblum. Gorton served on the national campaign teams of Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan. He managed all of Governor Pete Wilson’s successful Gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races. He was the first political consultant hired by Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2000 and was the chief strategist for his campaign for Governor in 2003.</span>
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Death Threats and Drained Bank Accounts: Life on the Wrong End of the Mueller Probe</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>By MICHAEL CAPUTO&nbsp;<b>March 28, 2019</b></div><div>
</div></div><div><div class="story-signature" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin-right: 344.859px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding-bottom: 1.5em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(232, 232, 232);"><footer class="content-notes magazine-notes" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Caputo, a former Trump campaign adviser, is managing director of Buffalo-based Zeppelin Communications. He is a 30-year veteran of Republican and international campaigns.</font></span></p></footer></div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If you believe Attorney General William Barr, the special counsel report issued March 22 found no evidence that President Donald Trump’s campaign staff conspired or coordinated with Russia. As a former Trump senior campaign adviser and as a witness ensnared by the congressional and special counsel investigations for two years, that was vindication. I was elated.For a Trump associate trapped in the Russia collusion maelstrom, this is the norm, not an exception.&nbsp;<b>This was the 58th threat of violence</b>&nbsp;I received since the drama began two years ago, when my name was first brought up in a nationally televised House Intelligence hearing. Most of the perpetrators cloaked their identities. Some didn’t, and they got hit with criminal charges. I know many investigation witnesses who have lived the same nightmare of dealing with the unhinged.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unfortunately, it won’t stop anytime soon: A criminal psychologist advising me through this period told me we’ve entered the danger zone. The mentally ill who have made Russia collusion the center of their lives will become unhinged. Some may attack.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That’s the life we’ve lived for two years—my wife, my young daughters and me.<b>&nbsp;I had a tooth knocked out by Antifa at the president’s inauguration.</b>&nbsp;After a televised congressional hearing during which my wife was mentioned, a man made a credible threat to burn down my house with my children inside. As a result, my office and home are wrapped in security measures,<b>&nbsp;I’ve installed shotgun stations in my home, and I carry a concealed weapon wherever it’s legal.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The remarkable vitriol impacts everyone. My teenager was harried by students and teachers alike; parents of my toddlers’ friends shied away. My wife carried us all on her shoulders, exponentially stronger than I am.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>To deal with my anger, I turned to my church</b>. We live across the street from our Roman Catholic parish, 39 steps away from the holy water, so close that the church bells mark every moment of our day. We wake up to the pealing, we pause several times a day to hear the beautiful songs ring out.<

;Even when a USA Today columnist tweeted that my toddler daughters should be raped, I was at peace. (It helped that she was fired for it.)NOTE NO EVIDENCE]</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Much of the impact is material. I lost most of my clients, lost staff, closed offices, nearly lost our home, drained my children’s college fund and struggled to pay the smallest bills. All of that will sound familiar to my&nbsp;<b>Original Trump friends</b>&nbsp;also caught up in this mess.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">J.D.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> Gordon,&nbsp;a retired U.S. Navy commander, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">was interviewed multiple times by several investigations. His legal costs were significant; the blow to his communications business was even more so.&nbsp;</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But the far greater cost was his inability to serve in a senior Trump administration post.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">A surefire pick for a senior role in the national security team, he was cut off from working in the administration. This was a great loss for our nation. FLYNN? BOLTON?</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">[[</span><u style="box-sizing: inherit;">What the Mueller Report says</u><span style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 247);">:</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 30px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 30px; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 247);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the Republican National Convention, a <b>Campaign official J.D. Gordon</b> intervened in the GOP Platform negotiations to counteract an amendment calling for arming Ukraine to defend itself against Russian incursions. The Special Counsel’s investigation “did not establish that [Gordon’s] efforts to dilute a portion of the Republican Party platform on providing assistance to Ukraine were undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump.”,,,]]</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Carter Page,</b>&nbsp;with his bucket hat and sunny disposition, was destroyed. He endured unexpected legal costs while his oil and gas consulting business dwindled to nothing as reporters, investigators and well-placed partisans ripped him to shreds. Of all the people the United States of America failed in this investigation, Carter Page had it the worst.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But our nation also failed George Papadopoulos, who was destroyed, and I am ashamed to know I helped.</b>&nbsp;A young man trying to make the most of a big break, he fell into traps spies set for him overseas. With news of his arrest, I called him “the Coffee Boy” on CNN, trying to spin his marginal influence on the campaign. My description was dishonorable, and fueled a fire from which he and his wife are only now recovering.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The list goes on and on: A hardworking travel aide from the campaign was subpoenaed, which rocked his young family. Others—a house painter, a translator and more—didn’t particularly care for candidate Trump, but their lives were dragged through the muck anyway.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
Today, now that the special counsel has cleared the campaign and all of us of allegations of Russian collusion, we are all celebrating. The final report emerged in time for my birthday party, and a friend gave me a T-shirt to mark the occasion: “I survived the Mueller investigation and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.”For two years, most of the Trump associates involved as mere witnesses have been unable to speak with friends from the 2016 campaign, convention and transition. Now, with the Mueller investigation complete, we’re all talking again, and the stories of cratered lives are innumerable. Many lost their jobs or shed clients; the husband and wife in one family lost their jobs.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The shirt got a lot of laughs that night. But, as I swirled the last of my final birthday drink,<b>&nbsp;I had to wonder if the widespread personal destruction is permanent. If so, everyone else needs a T- shirt.</b></font></p></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://theaapc.org/awards/hall-of-fame/george-gorton/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://theaapc.org/awards/hall-of-fame/george-gorton/</font></a></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">stone hell</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><span style="line-height: 22.75px;">Like Roger Stone,&nbsp;</span><b style="line-height: 22.75px;">Gorton was a veteran of CREEP, who would go on to work as a top consultant, helping Pete Wilson, governor of California,</b><span style="line-height: 22.75px;">&nbsp;win re-election by pushing Proposition 187, the ballot initiative that prohibited illegal aliens from using education, health and social services in the state.</span></span><span style="line-height: 22.75px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Stone had paid for Sedan Chair II to infiltrate various Democratic campaigns, and Stone had recommended that CREEP hire Theodore<b> Brill to spy on various student groups</b>. Gorton oversaw Brill, and paid him from his own pocket, so that his compensation wouldn’t come from campaign expenses. <b>When Watergate broke, the revelation of student spying came out as well. “GW Student Spied for GOP,”</b> was the Woodward-Bernstein headline (I cannot find this piece on-line; however, the excerpt from&nbsp;</span><i style="line-height: 22.75px;">All the President’s Men</i><span style="line-height: 22.75px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.prop1.org/history/1776plus/74allpm.htm" sl-processed="1" style="line-height: 22.75px;">“The Quaker Plot”</a><span style="line-height: 22.75px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;focuses on Brill). “Spying is a funny way to describe” what Brill did, Gorton said at the time.&nbsp;</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="line-height: 22.75px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</span></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="line-height: 22.75px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">What exactly was it Brill was paid for, then? “It was a part of my job to know what all of youth was thinking,” Gorton explained. Gorton’s fellow CREEP staffers would hand him pages that were folded in half that he would give his signature to. Because they were folded in half, he couldn’t see what he was signing off on, and thereby could admit to no knowledge in court or elsewhere of what he’d just authorized. After a short exile after Watergate, Gorton would become a very successful political consultant</span><a name="bkfrftnote136" style="line-height: 22.75px; text-decoration: underline;" /><a href="http://italkyoubored.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/roger-stone-pretty-reckless-is-going-straight-to-hell-part-six/#ftnote136" sl-processed="1" style="line-height: 22.75px;">¹³⁶</a><span style="line-height: 22.75px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.&nbsp;</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><i style="line-height: 22.75px;">
</i></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><i style="line-height: 22.75px;"><b>Time</b></i><span style="line-height: 22.75px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>&nbsp;magazine would put Gorton and others on the cover for their work in Yeltsin’s election </b>(</span><a href="http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19960715,00.html" sl-processed="1" style="line-height: 22.75px;">“Yanks to the Rescue”</a><span style="line-height: 22.75px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;is the cover,</span><a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,984833,00.html" sl-processed="1" style="line-height: 22.75px;">“Rescuing Boris”</a><span style="line-height: 22.75px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;by Michael Kramer is the story inside), but perhaps the&nbsp;</span><i style="line-height: 22.75px;">Time</i><span style="line-height: 22.75px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;writer was being spun more than the Russians. Yeltsin’s Russian consultants ridiculed the way that American consultants, who they felt had played a marginal role, placed themselves at the center of everything&nbsp;</span><a name="bkfrftnote137" style="line-height: 22.75px; text-decoration: underline;" /><a href="http://italkyoubored.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/roger-stone-pretty-reckless-is-going-straight-to-hell-part-six/#ftnote137" sl-processed="1" style="line-height: 22.75px;">¹³⁷</a><span style="line-height: 22.75px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. “Russia needs democracy…. I would be remiss in my duty to mankind if I didn’t use every political consulting trick I could think of to keep what I felt was a great evil from returning to mankind,” Gorton would say at the time to the&nbsp;</span><i style="line-height: 22.75px;">Sacramento Bee</i><span style="line-height: 22.75px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.&nbsp;</span></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="line-height: 22.75px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">His hindsight view was more brutally realistic. “My guy was drunk, corrupt. It was bad vs. evil,”</span><span style="line-height: 22.75px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> he’d say</span><a name="bkfrftnote138" style="line-height: 22.75px; text-decoration: underline;" /><a href="http://italkyoubored.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/roger-stone-pretty-reckless-is-going-straight-to-hell-part-six/#ftnote138" sl-processed="1" style="line-height: 22.75px;">¹³⁸</a><span style="line-height: 22.75px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. “von Paulus” also has Michael Caputo’s company reaping a fortune in the millions through a deal with <b>GazProm media</b> in 2001. This is either very wrong, or he blew through the money quickly. A piece run during the Paladino campaign has him grateful for Roger Stone giving him some work and a place to sleep after a nasty divorce and a financial meltdown in 2003</span><a name="bkfrftnote139" style="line-height: 22.75px; text-decoration: underline;" /><a href="http://italkyoubored.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/roger-stone-pretty-reckless-is-going-straight-to-hell-part-six/#ftnote139" sl-processed="1" style="line-height: 22.75px;">¹³⁹</a><span style="line-height: 22.75px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. So, in 2010, Michael Caputo was Carl Paladino’s campaign manager.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=
</font><div><div id="mw-content-text" lang="en" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 19.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>George Gorton</b>&nbsp;(born, March 30, 1947) is a Republican political consultant from&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California" title="California" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">California</a>,&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States" title="United States" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">United States</a>. He has helped lead national political campaigns in Russia, Panama, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Canada and the United States.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 1.5em;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">His efforts in bringing&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Yeltsin" title="Boris Yeltsin" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Boris Yeltsin</a>&nbsp;back from the politically dead in Russia earned him and his partners, Joe Shumate and Dick Dresner, a ten-page cover story in&nbsp;<i>Time</i>&nbsp;Magazine.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gorton#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[1]</a></sup>&nbsp;and a major motion picture (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinning_Boris" title="Spinning Boris" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Spinning Boris</a>) where G<b>eorge, the central figure in the movie, is played by&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Goldblum" title="Jeff Goldblum" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Jeff Goldblum</a>.</b><sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gorton#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[2]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 1.5em;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Gorton served on the national campaign teams of Presidents&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon" title="Richard Nixon" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Richard Nixon</a>,&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ford" title="Gerald Ford" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Gerald Ford</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan" title="Ronald Reagan" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Ronald Reagan</a>. He managed all of Governor&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Wilson" title="Pete Wilson" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Pete Wilson</a>'s successful Gubernatorial and US Senate races.<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gorton#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[3]</a></sup>&nbsp;He was the first political consultant hired by&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Schwarzenegger" title="Arnold Schwarzenegger" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Arnold Schwarzenegger</a>&nbsp;in 2000 and was the chief strategist for his campaign for Governor in 2003.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gorton#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[4]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">George is currently the lead instructor for the&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.nationalinstituteofpolitics.com/" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaavkleqvr4xn3pgqkamqhduxfqtu7kttkpd5ra8ainfartq2irxfwt2qedafttj2fspioe1ecoleuowwjgzyab="AAAAVklEQVR4Xn3PgQkAMQhDUXfqTu7kTtkpd5RA8AInfArtQ2iRXFWT2QedAfttj2FsPIOE1eCOlEuoWWjgzYaB" ikegorxxhqb="IkeGOrxXhqB" ua9bfcm0lazuh="uA9Bfcm0lAZuh" yiead="YIeAD" caqsz4kcmuaaaaasuvork5cyii="); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat;" xmlns:data="data"><b>National Institute of Politics</b></a>.</font></p><h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); background-image: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="References">References</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; padding-right: 0.25em; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; direction: ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="transition: color 100ms ease-out, margin 100ms ease-out; -webkit-transition: color 100ms ease-out, margin 100ms ease-out;">[</span><span class="mw-editsection-divider" style="visibility: hidden;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="transition: color 100ms ease-out, margin 100ms ease-out; -webkit-transition: color 100ms ease-out, margin 100ms ease-out; visibility: hidden;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Gorton&action=edit&section=1&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: References" class="mw-editsection-link-secondary" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; visibility: hidden;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="transition: color 100ms ease-out, margin 100ms ease-out; -webkit-transition: color 100ms ease-out, margin 100ms ease-out; visibility: hidden;" /></a></span></span></span></font></h2><div class="reflist" style="margin-bottom: 0.5em; list-style-type: decimal;"><ol class="references" style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 3.2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: inherit;"><li id="cite_note-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gorton#cite_ref-1" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">^{</a></b></span>&nbsp;}<span class="reference-text"><span class="citation news" style="word-wrap: break-word;">Kramer, Michael (15 July 1996).&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,984833,00.html" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaavkleqvr4xn3pgqkamqhduxfqtu7kttkpd5ra8ainfartq2irxfwt2qedafttj2fspioe1ecoleuowwjgzyab="AAAAVklEQVR4Xn3PgQkAMQhDUXfqTu7kTtkpd5RA8AInfArtQ2iRXFWT2QedAfttj2FsPIOE1eCOlEuoWWjgzYaB" ikegorxxhqb="IkeGOrxXhqB" ua9bfcm0lazuh="uA9Bfcm0lAZuh" yiead="YIeAD" caqsz4kcmuaaaaasuvork5cyii="); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat;" xmlns:data="data">"RESCUING BORIS"</a>. Time Magazine<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved 2009-08-06</span>.</span><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AGeorge+Gorton&rft.aufirst=Michael&rft.au=Kramer%2C+Michael&rft.aulast=Kramer&rft.btitle=RESCUING+BORIS&rft.date=15+July+1996&rft.genre=book&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.time.com%2Ftime%2Fprintout%2F0%2C8816%2C984833%2C00.html&rft.pub=Time+Magazine&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gorton#cite_ref-2" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">^{</a></b></span>&nbsp;}<span class="reference-text"><span class="citation news" style="word-wrap: break-word;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1S1-9200403130773654.html" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaavkleqvr4xn3pgqkamqhduxfqtu7kttkpd5ra8ainfartq2irxfwt2qedafttj2fspioe1ecoleuowwjgzyab="AAAAVklEQVR4Xn3PgQkAMQhDUXfqTu7kTtkpd5RA8AInfArtQ2iRXFWT2QedAfttj2FsPIOE1eCOlEuoWWjgzYaB" ikegorxxhqb="IkeGOrxXhqB" ua9bfcm0lazuh="uA9Bfcm0lAZuh" yiead="YIeAD" caqsz4kcmuaaaaasuvork5cyii="); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat;" xmlns:data="data">"The Americans in Moscow: How to Spin a Russian Election"</a>. New York Times. 13 March 2004<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved 2009-08-06</span>.</span><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AGeorge+Gorton&rft.btitle=The+Americans+in+Moscow%3A+How+to+Spin+a+Russian+Election&rft.date=13+March+2004&rft.genre=book&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.encyclopedia.com%2Fdoc%2F1S1-9200403130773654.html&rft.pub=New+York+Times&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gorton#cite_ref-3" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">^{</a></b></span>&nbsp;}<span class="reference-text"><span class="citation news" style="word-wrap: break-word;">Wallace, Amy (12 October 1994).&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://articles.latimes.com/1994-10-12/news/mn-49329_1_pete-wilson" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaavkleqvr4xn3pgqkamqhduxfqtu7kttkpd5ra8ainfartq2irxfwt2qedafttj2fspioe1ecoleuowwjgzyab="AAAAVklEQVR4Xn3PgQkAMQhDUXfqTu7kTtkpd5RA8AInfArtQ2iRXFWT2QedAfttj2FsPIOE1eCOlEuoWWjgzYaB" ikegorxxhqb="IkeGOrxXhqB" ua9bfcm0lazuh="uA9Bfcm0lAZuh" yiead="YIeAD" caqsz4kcmuaaaaasuvork5cyii="); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat;" xmlns:data="data">"The Mystic Behind Wilson's Mystique - Politics: Adviser met with guru before agreeing to run reelection bid."</a>. Los Angeles Times<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved 2009-08-06</span>.</span><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AGeorge+Gorton&rft.aufirst=Amy&rft.aulast=Wallace&rft.au=Wallace%2C+Amy&rft.btitle=The+Mystic+Behind+Wilson%27s+Mystique+-+Politics%3A+Adviser+met+with+guru+before+agreeing+to+run+reelection+bid.&rft.date=12+October+1994&rft.genre=book&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Farticles.latimes.com%2F1994-10-12%2Fnews%2Fmn-49329_1_pete-wilson&rft.pub=Los+Angeles+Times&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gorton#cite_ref-4" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">^{</a></b></span>&nbsp;}<span class="reference-text"><span class="citation news" style="word-wrap: break-word;">Bennett, Kelly (23 June 2008).&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2008/06/23/news/gorton-one1062308.txt" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaavkleqvr4xn3pgqkamqhduxfqtu7kttkpd5ra8ainfartq2irxfwt2qedafttj2fspioe1ecoleuowwjgzyab="AAAAVklEQVR4Xn3PgQkAMQhDUXfqTu7kTtkpd5RA8AInfArtQ2iRXFWT2QedAfttj2FsPIOE1eCOlEuoWWjgzYaB" ikegorxxhqb="IkeGOrxXhqB" ua9bfcm0lazuh="uA9Bfcm0lAZuh" yiead="YIeAD" caqsz4kcmuaaaaasuvork5cyii="); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat;" xmlns:data="data">"FROM SAN DIEGO TO MOSCOW: GEORGE GORTON'S STRANGE AND WILD ASSIGNMENTS"</a>. Voice of San Diego<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved 2009-08-06</span>.</span><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AGeorge+Gorton&rft.au=Bennett%2C+Kelly&rft.aufirst=Kelly&rft.aulast=Bennett&rft.btitle=FROM+SAN+DIEGO+TO+MOSCOW%3A+GEORGE+GORTON%27S+STRANGE+AND+WILD+ASSIGNMENTS&rft.date=23+June+2008&rft.genre=book&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.voiceofsandiego.org%2Farticles%2F2008%2F06%2F23%2Fnews%2Fgorton-one1062308.txt&rft.pub=Voice+of+San+Diego&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li></ol></div><table cellspacing="0" class="navbox" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); width: 850.8px; margin: auto; clear: both; text-align: center; padding: 1px; border-spacing: 0px; background-color: rgb(253, 253, 253);"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 2px;"><table cellspacing="0" class="nowraplinks hlist navbox-inner" style="width: 848px; border-spacing: 0px; background-color: transparent;"><tbody><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="padding: 0.25em 1em; line-height: 1.5em; 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</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">George Gorton</b><span style="line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;is president of The California Group, a political consulting firm, CEO of Direct Communication and chairman of Governor Pete Wilson's Reapportionment Committee. He previously served as the national college director for The <b>Committee for the Re-election of President </b>Nixon in 1972, Chief of Staff for the California Republican Party in 1975, and as campaign manager and lead consultant for Pete Wilson for U.S. Senate in 1982. Mr. Gorton was a delegate to the 1984 Republican National Convention and was the lead consultant in 1988 for Pete Wilson of U.S. Senate and in 1990, campaign manager and lead consultant for Pete Wilson for Governor of California.</span></font></div><div><span style="line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div><span style="line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Harvard’s Institute of Politics (IOP) was established in 1966 as a memorial to President Kennedy and aims to inspire undergraduates to consider careers in politics and public service.</font></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">bs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">George Gorton</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorton & Mulanix International CEO George Gorton has been called “brilliant” by the Los Angeles Times, a “wizard” by Campaigns and Elections Magazine and “one of the most driven, go-for-the-jugular consultants in California politics” by the Sacramento Bee. His fellow consultants have called him “the finest in the business” and “masterful”.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Most recently, Gorton was the architect of Proposition 49 and one of the key advisors behind Arnold Schwarzenegger’s transition from the top of the entertainment world to the top spot in California politics.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorton also ran all of Governor and Senator Pete Wilson’s successful statewide campaigns:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pete Wilson for US Senate 1982 against Governor Jerry Brown</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pete Wilson for US Senate 1988 against Lt. Governor Lee McCarthy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pete Wilson for Governor 1990 against Mayor Dianne Feinstein</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pete Wilson for Governor 1994 against Treasurer Kathleen Brown</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorton has a better winner record in California statewide campaigns than any other California GOP consultant.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">His guidance in Pete Wilson’s 1994 re-election campaign brought Governor Wilson from a twenty-three point deficit eighteen months out, to a fifteen point win in November – one of the few races that can be considered both an upset and a landslide.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorton is also a two-time winner of the prestigious Pollie Award from the American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC), and the only consultant to ever win the MVP award for a domestic and international campaign.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorton has also served on the national campaign staffs of four out of the last five Republican Presidents</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to his victories in California, Gorton was part of the team of strategists that brought Boris Yeltsin from fifth place in the polls with six percent, to a thirteen point win in 1996. Gorton’s team’s activities were chronicled in the Showtime movie “Spinning Boris” starring Jeff Goldblum, Live Schrieber and Anthony LaPaglia. The movie won best picture at The Hamptons Film Festival, and has been nominated for best “made for TV” picture at the Monte Carlo Film Festival.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorton has also advised political leaders in<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Romania, Czechoslovakia, Canada and Panama.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the 1980’s, Gorton was the strategist behind the Wilson-Lowrey political machine in San Diego, and at one point had helped elect six of the nine City Council members.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">His strategic advice has made an impact in numerous statewide initiatives in California, including:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Proposition 213, the only time anyone has beaten the trial lawyers in California</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Proposition 8</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Proposition 68</font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Proposition 185</font></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Proposition 165</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Proposition 226</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Proposition 49</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Key leaders in business and industry have turned to Gorton for strategic advice, including Hyatt Hotels, Signal Resco,<font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Koch Industries, </font>the Irvine Company and the San Diego Padres.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorton’s expertise transcends politics, having studied Buddhist meditation in the Monastery Wat Suan Moke, Thailand. He is also considered a Toltec Master, having studied under the Nagual and NY Times best selling author Miguel Ruiz.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Gorton was also a fellow at the prestigious Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.</b></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cheering in the audience were a gaggle of Republican operatives,

including Schwarzenegger handler George Gorton.

Gorton was first hired by Schwarzenegger in 2002 to direct the star's

campaign for Proposition 49, a feel-good ballot measure providing

grants for after-school programs (and intended as a vehicle to

establish Schwarzenegger's political credibility before a run for

governor in 2006).

Gorton is a veteran consultant known for his work with Republican

moderates like forme<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">r Gov. Pete Wilson</span>.

He is highly regarded in California political circles, and for that,

his services carry a hefty price tag.

During the Prop. 49 campaign, Schwarzenegger heaped $780,000 on

Gorton's California Group.

This June, with the premature arrival of a gubernatorial campaign

thanks to the recall, the money started rolling again with a $60,000

payment to Gorton through the Prop. 49 committee.

In this new effort, Gorton has taken on <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Sipple</span>, his former partner

from Wilson's campaigns, as Schwarzenegger's media director.

<b>

Sipple gained a reputation as a hard-hitting media consultant by

fashioning ads to push viewers' emotional buttons.</b>

<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">

These negative, character-based attacks on opponents were instrumental

in securing a series of Republican victories, notably George W. Bush's

defeat of Ann Richards in the 1994 Texas gubernatorial race</span>.

But after working on Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign, which

ended in a landslide defeat, and weathering a personal scandal in

1997, which caused his resignation from his ongoing political work,

Sipple's luster was tarnished.

In 2000, Sipple again found himself embroiled in scandal, exposed for

accepting $120,000 from then-California Insurance Commissioner Chuck

Quackenbush -- a client planning to run for Senate -- to craft a

veiled campaign ad in which the commissioner played a starring role.

The money Sipple received was part of $13 million intended for

earthquake victims.

The victims never saw a penny of it, and Quackenbush was forced to

resign in disgrace.

But now as Schwarzenegger's media consultant, Sipple is positioned to

return to his former influence and paycheck.

On Aug. 13, Schwarzenegger shuffled his team,<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> demoting Gorton </span>and

adding another consultant embroiled in the Quackenbush scandal, Martin

Wilson, who accepted $375,000 from the former insurance commissioner.

Gorton's role as Schwarzenegger's chief strategist has been assumed by

Bob White, Gov. Wilson's former chief of staff.

The move highlights Schwarzegger's close ties to Wilson, who is

persona non grata among Latino voters for his support of the

anti-immigrant initiative Prop. 187 in 1994.

After The Tonight Show, Gorton told a reporter from the San Francisco

Chronicle that he was unaware of Schwarzenegger's intentions prior to

the program.

Besides his impending demotion, there are other signs that Gorton may

have been telling the truth.

Russo recounts a series of private meetings, while Schwarzenegger was

in Mexico City promoting Terminator 3, between Gorton and former Los

Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, who lost to Simon in the 2002

Republican gubernatorial primary.

As Russo explained to me, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Gorton was planning to jump ship and join

Riordan's campaign if Schwarzenegger did not declare, </span>moving from one

self-funding client to the next.

But Schwarzenegger's announcement came as the greatest shock to Issa,

who had already spent some of his car-alarm fortune to warm up a

gubernatorial campaign.

He had taken out radio ads, printed up posters and hired a new team of

consultants, including Ken Khachigian, a veteran speechwriter who

served on President Richard Nixon's 1972 campaign "attack group," and

Larry McCarthy, the media producer of the infamous Willie Horton ad

that helped elect George Bush Senior in 1988.

However, with the Republican Party suddenly lined up behind

Schwarzenegger, Issa's ambition was crushed.

He found himself at a press conference, the victim of a vast

Republican conspiracy, and he cried.

Make way for Schwarzenegger and his team of consultants, whose credo

can be best summarized by a statement Gorton made in Mother Jones

while working on then-Russian President<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Boris Yeltsin's</span> 1996

re-election campaign:

"Unless you're going to make some serious money, it's not worth it."
<a href="http://www.mombu.com/politics/politics/t-does-anyone-really-believe-ah-nuld-is-a-liberal-far-right-right-wing-13169563.html">
http://www.mombu.com/politics/politics/t-does-anyone-really-believe-ah-nuld-is-a-liberal-far-right-right-wing-13169563.html</a>

</font></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" margin="margin" px="px" em="em" line-height="line-height"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A certain part of Pete Wilson misses the political game, said Kenneth L</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Khachigian,</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;a former strategist to Ronald Reagan who most recently advised Darrell Issa,&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">the San Diego congressman who bankrolled the $2 million recall petition only to drop from the race for governor at the last moment.</span></font></p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" margin="margin" px="px" em="em" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Pete wants to participate," Mr. Khachigian said. "He cares deeply about this state. For four and a half years, nobody asked his advice, and now his juices are flowing."</font></p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" margin="margin" px="px" em="em" line-height="line-height"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Among Mr. Wilson's coterie working on the Schwarzenegger campaign is Bob White, his chief political lieutenant for more than 30 years. Mr. White is regarded as one of the best-connected men in Sacramento, an avuncular figure untainted by scandal. He has been, over the years, Mr. Wilson's fixer, facilitator and schmoozer. Mr. White runs the day-to-day operation of the campaign.&nbsp;</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">George Gorton,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> who ran Boris Yeltsin's re-election campaign, is Mr. Schwarzenegger's chief strategist.</span></b></font></p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" margin="margin" px="px" em="em" line-height="line-height"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The finance and tax advisers were plucked from the Hoover Institution, where Mr. Wilson is a fellow. Among them are&nbsp;<b>George P. Shultz</b>, the former secretary of state; Michael Boskin, former adviser to Mr. Wilson and former chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers; and&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">John Cogan, a deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget under the first President George Bush who is in line to be Mr. Schwarzenegger's independent auditor.</span></font></p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" margin="margin" px="px" em="em" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Patricia Clarey, a former Wilson deputy, manages the logistics. From the East and a graduate of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, Ms. Clarey is said to be the conduit to Mr. Schwarzenegger's wife, Maria Shriver, who holds great influence over him. Sean Walsh, a campaign spokesman, was also employed by Mr. Wilson.</font></p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" margin="margin" px="px" em="em" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">News that the campaign had hired another Wilson associate<b>, Martin Wilson, raised eyebrows. He, along with the advertising guru Don Sipple, were embroiled in an insurance scandal that drove the insurance commissioner, Chuck Quackenbush, from office.</b></font></p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" margin="margin" px="px" em="em" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A member of Mr. Wilson's inner circle when he was governor, Martin Wilson, no relation, is co-manager of the day-to-day campaign operations. His consulting firm, Public Strategies Inc., received nearly $400,000 from a foundation set up by Mr. Quackenbush after the Northridge earthquake in 1994.</font></p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" margin="margin" px="px" em="em" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Instead of paying huge fines, insurance companies accused of mishandling claims were allowed to contribute to foundations ostensibly devised to help earthquake victims. Instead, the foundations spent millions of dollars on television advertisements devoted to enhancing Mr. Quackenbush's political image.</font></b></p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" margin="margin" px="px" em="em" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Sipple, who now produces Mr. Schwarzenegger's commercials, wrote the scripts for the Quackenbush advertisements and was paid $125,000, government records show. Mr. Quackenbush resigned in 2000 rather than face impeachment proceedings. Neither Mr. Wilson nor Mr. Sipple was charged with crimes.</font></p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" margin="margin" px="px" em="em" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nevertheless, bad perceptions linger, said Brad Sherman, the Democratic congressman who represents the Northridge area.</font></p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" margin="margin" px="px" em="em" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"A lot of people feel they got cheated," Mr. Sherman said. "If Schwarzenegger wants to say he is going to clean up special interests, he needs to start with his own staff."</font></p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" margin="margin" px="px" em="em" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Sipple, considered one of the most effective advertising people in politics, is best known for his commercial "They Just Keep Coming," which depicted illegal immigrants sneaking into California. It was made in support of Proposition 187, and alienated a large part of the Latino community.</font></p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" margin="margin" px="px" em="em" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As good as its winning percentage is, the Wilson team has had highly publicized defeats in recent years. Dan Lungren hired some of Mr. Wilson's top media and polling strategists in 1998 in a losing campaign for governor against Mr. Davis. Mr. Sipple was the chief strategist last year for Richard J. Riordan, the former Los Angeles mayor, who lost by 18 points to Bill Simon Jr. in the Republican primary.</font></p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" margin="margin" px="px" em="em" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Gorton played down the controversies involving some in the Wilson camp.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>