Washington Candadate McGavick reveals Washington State '93 DUI charge

By Alicia Mundy
Seattle Times Washington bureau

Republican Senate candidate Mike McGavick issued an unusual confession Thursday, discussing his failed first marriage, mistakes as a father, layoffs he executed at Safeco — and revealing a 1993 drunken-driving charge.

He also acknowledged that, while working as a political operative for then-Sen. Slade Gorton, he ran an ad that inaccurately characterized an opponent's views.

McGavick surprised supporters, Democrats and the media as much by how he divulged his personal history as by the content of the admissions.

He volunteered several comments about his past in an interview with The Associated Press, and then posted a carefully crafted, somewhat emotional letter on his campaign Web site.

All of McGavick's admissions, expect for the DUI charge, have previously been reported.

In an interview with The Seattle Times, McGavick said he had no indication that Democrat Sen. Maria Cantwell's campaign or anyone else planned to reveal his DUI anytime soon. But, he said, "I've seen the campaign conducted against me, I felt I should be discussing it myself.

"Obviously, it's not something you bring up early on in the race," he added.

In keeping with the "civility" theme of his campaign, McGavick began his letter on the Web site by asking rhetorically, "What's wrong with politics today?" Then he excoriated the tenor of his race with incumbent Cantwell, in which he said he is being attacked.

He turned to his past: "I have lots of faults, and I have made some mistakes that I deeply regret." He pointed to "two great failures." His first marriage ended in divorce, and as a result, he wrote, "my eldest son, Jack, grew up with me as a 'part-time' dad."

The second was his citation for drunken driving in 1993. He said he was pulled over after cutting a yellow light too close while driving his current wife, Gaelynn, home from "several celebrations honoring our new relationship."

He said he should not have gotten behind the wheel and that the matter "remains a humbling and powerful event in my life."

Alex Castellanos, a Republican political consultant who has been part of the Bush campaigns and handled GOP Senate candidates, said McGavick's letter "looks like a good move."

"The prototype of this was Bill Clinton. Any time he thought bad news was coming out, he'd try to get it out first, his way," Castellanos said. "These days, people don't expect candidates to be perfect, but they do expect them to be honest."

In 2004, Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi volunteered to a Seattle Times reporter that he had been arrested for driving while drunk when he was 18 years old. The disclosure never became an issue in the campaign.

Kelly Steele, spokesman for the state Democratic Party, said that McGavick wanted to control any message about his past personal behavior.

Citing a revelation about a DUI arrest that temporarily disrupted the Bush campaign in 2000, just days before the election, Steele said, "From privatizing Social Security to drunk driving, this shows that Mike McGavick and George Bush are cut from the same cloth."

McGavick's DUI occurred one night across the border from Washington, D.C., in a Maryland suburb. He said he knew as soon as he cut the yellow light that he would be pulled over.

McGavick told The Associated Press that he blew.17 percent on the blood-alcohol meter — well above Maryland's legal intoxication threshold. The current threshold is .08, the same as in Washington state.

At the time, he was working as vice chairman of American Insurance Association, which lobbies for the insurance industry in D.C.

Maryland law allowed drivers with clean records to avoid a DUI on their record by completing "probation before judgment." McGavick completed a year's probation, paid a fine and attended alcohol education classes. As a result, he said, the charge wasn't put on his record.

McGavick said the letter wasn't meant as a pre-emptive disclosure. "I don't think of it that way," he said. "It's about my personal life, it's not a campaign tactic."

McGavick's personal life has had its rough spots. His marriage to Kim Rainey ended around 1991.

His ex-wife said in a 2003 interview with The Times that McGavick was so driven by politics that when she went into labor in 1988, he was planning to attend a Slade Gorton rally on Whidbey Island. McGavick stuck around but made phone calls while she delivered their son. They separated the following year.

In his letter Thursday, McGavick wrote, "Those who have gone through a divorce know the pain and special challenges of raising a child under such circumstances."

This spring, McGavick missed a political fundraiser with President Bush in Medina to attend his son's high-school graduation in Pennsylvania.

McGavick noted two other issues of character that have dogged him. He was Gorton's campaign manager in 1988 when the campaign produced an ad twisting the words of the Democratic opponent. The commercial suggested that then-Rep. Mike Lowry supported legalizing marijuana.

"We let the ad finish its week-long run," McGavick wrote, even though he learned that the allegation was false.

He also acknowledged that, as CEO of Safeco, he'd made a mistake in letting employees believe there would be no more layoffs after announcing 450 dismissals in May 2001.

In fact, the company's finances had not stabilized and Safeco announced two months later that a total of 1,200 people would lose their jobs.

"I was wrong to raise such hopes," he wrote.

For information on your Washington State DUI please contact our Snohomish County DUI attorneys, King County DUI attorneys, Island County DUI attorneys, or Skagit County DUI attorneys at 425-493-1115 or check out our website at http://www.washdui.com