Defeat for Dixy Lee Ray

A psychiatrist whips the zoologist Governor of Washington

"Nature did not make me willowy," Dixy Lee Ray once observed. Nature did not make her a diplomat, either. Four years ago, intrigued by Ray's bluff manners and blunt speech, voters elected her Governor of Washington. But once she was in office, her attitude came to seem less hearty than arrogant, and last week she went down to a stunning defeat. Democrats chose State Senator James A. McDermott as their gubernatorial nominee, with 59% of the votes.

It was an unusual campaign, pitting two candidates trained in science against each other. Ray, 66, was a professor of zoology before joining the Atomic Energy Commission, which she headed in 1973-74; McDermott, 43, is a psychiatrist who continued treating patients to supplement his $9,600-a-year legislative salary until after he began his run for Governor in April. From the start, Ray was the issue.

"She was nuked to death," says Campaign Manager C. Montgomery Johnson in explanation of Ray's defeat. Indeed, Ray's outspoken advocacy of more nuclear power proved unpopular. In particular, she angered many voters by insisting on keeping open a dump at Hanford for nuclear wastes, including atomic garbage trucked in from other states. Said Ray: "There has to be some place to put it." McDermott favors expansion of nuclear power only "as a last resort," and wants to close the Hanford dump to all radioactive wastes except those from medical facilities.

Many other factors hurt Ray, particularly her highhanded style. Said Blair Butterworth, who ran Ray's campaign in 1976 and this year helped to run her opponent's: "It was not any issue in itself, but the way she handled issues. She ridiculed those who disagreed with her. She antagonized people."

She even managed to make an enemy of powerful and popular Warren G. Magnuson, who has represented Washington in the U.S. Senate since 1944. Needing the support of Gordon Walgren, Democratic leader in the state senate, to block a bill on prison expansion, Ray offered to appoint him to Magnuson's seat if Magnuson should die. When Walgren reported the offer publicly, Magnuson, who is 75 and campaigning for a seventh term, was enraged. He shouted at reporters: "I want to tell the Governor there ain't gonna be no vacancy." He later endorsed McDermott for Governor, and his aides handed out MAGNUSON-MCDERMOTT T shirts.

McDermott, a specialist trained in both adult and child psychiatry, entered politics in 1970 after leaving the Navy, where he had been chief psychiatrist at the Long Beach Naval Station in California. He won election to the Washington house of representatives in 1970 and to the state senate in 1974. During the gubernatorial primary campaign, he presented himself, in contrast to Ray, as moderate in both thought and personality. Said he: "I'm a thoughtful listener before I leap. I'm a problem solver at heart. That's what a psychiatrist is by profession. So if someone wants to put a gun to his head, a psychiatrist tries to help find some other solution to the problem."

McDermott's problem in November will be defeating King County [Seattle] Executive John Spellman, 53, who narrowly bested two rivals in the Republican primary. Spellman, a plodding campaigner, lost to Ray in 1976, but since then has won wide acclaim for completing Seattle's domed stadium, the Kingdome, with no cost overruns. He is now considered a formidable opponent.

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