Jim McDermott is known today as the long time Congressman from Seattle and is the most outspoken liberal in the Washington State delegation in that Other Washington. Since 1988 he was won elections by ridiculously huge margins (over 80% in 2010 for example). But it wasn't always so. Long ago he made two unsuccessful bids for Governor. In 1972 he failed to win the Democratic primary and in 1980 he lost the general election.
I might be wrong, but I think I picked up this button in his 1972 bid, when he was a little known member of the Washington State House of Representatives. And in 1972, when he was trying to win name recognition, it seems strange to have a button with no words on it. Maybe it was this sort of marketing that lost him the primary.
