The August 9, 1968, edition of Time featured the keynoter for the Republican National Convention at Miami Beach. It was 42-year-old Daniel J. Evans, described as the prototype of the party's dynamic "New Breed." Just 12 years earlier, Evans was a low profile Seattle civil engineer campaigning for the Legislature.

Nixon-Agnew button. John Hughes Collection

Now he was Washington's governor and mentioned as a possible pick for vice president. Evans told delegates the nation demanded "the fresh breeze of new energy" to honorably end the war in Vietnam and solve "the crisis in the main streets of America—a crisis of violence and stolen hope." It was time to "touch the troubled spirit of America" and solve the problems of the environment, of urban decay and rural stagnation. Three days later, Richard Nixon chose Spiro T. Agnew, the little-known governor of Maryland, as his running-mate. As he watched the Nixon administration implode over the next six years, Evans admits "what if?" sometimes ran though his mind.

He was on a shorter vice-presidential list in 1976, losing out to Bob Dole. After an unprecedented three consecutive terms as governor, Evans headed The Evergreen State College before becoming a U.S. senator.