by StevenL, 7/27/11
A twist here, a turn there, and serial killer Ted Bundy could’ve had a successful career as a Washington State Republican office holder. It easily might’ve happened. Seriously.
Here’s how I came to this topic for this issue’s installment. When Osama was finally tracked down and killed, I realized the last time I felt this same enormous sense of relief when an evil person was finally brought to justice was on January 24, 1989, when the State of Florida executed Ted Bundy in the electric chair.
Although not a political terrorist like Osama, Bundy’s serial killings terrorized Puget Sound, including Olympia, in the early-mid 1970s.
Bundy was a Republican. A Rockefeller Republican to be exact, the kind that hardly exist anymore. He apparently started out at age 21 as a volunteer in Rocky’s Seattle campaign HQ in 1968. He was enough of a politico that he attended the National Convention that year in Miami.
He would, of course, visit Florida again at a later date.
Bundy and I were both politically active in Olympia in the 1972 campaign season and I’m occasionally asked if I was acquainted with him. I can’t say that I knew Ted, but knew of him as a political operative before he became an infamous household name. I seem to be one degree separated from him many times over.
For openers, I was an idealistic kid working for George McGovern in the cramped Security Building HQ facing across the street where the State Theater used to be. During the whole ’72 campaign that theater was running the Redford movie “The Candidate,” but right after the election they were showing a film called “When Legends Die,” or something like that. The old McGovern HQ later became home to Oly’s first comic shop, Four Color Comics, for whatever that is worth.
But Bundy belonged to the Other Party. He didn’t have much use for us Democrats. As his McGovern volunteer girlfriend at the time later wrote, “Ted thought that was awful, working for a Democrat.” It seems he was a loyal party man, apparently a Nixon supporter.
Bundy was a volunteer for the Dan Evans campaign in 1972. Dan the Man was running for his third term. He was first elected in 1964, defeating incumbent two-term Governor Al Rosellini. In ’64 Evans made hay out of the fact Big Al was trying for a third term. I can remember the ’64 TV ads where Dan looked us in the eye and said three terms was too long for anyone.
So in 1972 guess who the Dems brought back to oppose Evans? Big Al himself! And you can bet he reminded voters of the third term issue.
But this wasn’t the Rosellini of the past. This new version was much more conservative. Much more. In fact, it wasn’t unusual to see Evans and McGovern bumper stickers sharing the same bumper (however, Bundy was not one of those party-crossers. No McGovern sticker on his VW Bug!). When I saw Rosellini show up at a McGovern rally in Seattle he was booed (along with Scoop Jackson, the Senator from Boeing). However Warren Magnuson, the greatest senator this state has ever had, got a rousing ovation. We McGovernites were not blind party drones.
How conservative was Rosellini? He was endorsed by the right-wing Daily Olympian, that’s how.
A couple of us McGovern kids gave a sign for our guy to Rosy’s Oly HQ, where the Capitol Way and Union Ave Subway now sits. They dutifully put it in the window. But as we drove away we saw them take it down. Neither Al or Dan wanted to stick close to their party standard bearers.
Big Al was ahead in the polls for awhile but the campaign got real nasty and became one the ugliest gubernatorial contests in modern times. Truth to tell, even though Evans is celebrated as “Straight-Arrow” in political folklore, all three of his runs for Washington State CEO were pretty nasty, with his 1972 run possibly being the worst.
Rosellini hinted that Evans was using “Gestapo tactics” in the campaign, including wiretapping and other underhanded methods. And one of those minions involved in such skullduggery was none other than Ted Bundy. Let’s quote Kevin M. Sullivan from The Bundy Murders (2009), shall we?:
“His main task was to dog the trail of … Rosellini, and report back all pertinent information useful to their side. A disguise was sometimes employed. It was perhaps the first time Bundy was known to employ a false mustache, but it would not be the last. Working as a spy for Evans came easy to him …” and Sullivan goes on to document how Bundy earlier worked as an informant for the police against UW anti-war protesters.
Evans narrowly won re-election, and Bundy’s shadowy contributions were rewarded by an appointment as assistant to State Republican Chair Ross Davis (Bundy even shows up in the Polks Oly directory for 1973 and 1974 in this status).
Also during this period Evans apparently appointed Bundy to the Seattle Crime Prevention Advisory Committee. In this capacity, according to Time magazine, Bundy “was the author of a pamphlet instructing women on rape prevention.”
At the same time Ted Bundy was an upwardly mobile Republican, the disappearance of young women up and down Puget Sound began to be noticed, including an Evergreen freshman named Donna Manson.
After the election, Bundy’s role as an Evans spy had been revealed. It was called “Watergate West,” and I recall Bundy on the news, a one day wonder, denying any wrongdoing with great bug-eyed intensity. At the time I first saw him on TV I thought, “What a twisted geek. What a liar. Someone needs to seriously kick his ass!” Sometimes first impressions really are the best.
We need to thank the journalists who broke the story about Bundy being an Evans spy. Any potential political future Bundy might’ve had evaporated at that point, or at least would’ve been extremely difficult to attain. He left our state shortly after that public revelation. Ted was being embraced by a family (the Republicans) where he seemed to have a found a home at last, but those pesky media types had to spoil it for him.
Otherwise. A twist here, a turn there, and Bundy could’ve easily had a future as a Washington State Republican office holder.