"Doug Shorenstein never made any threats, never made any quid pro quo representations to me," Gozalez says. "I think that what he did say to me is if you want to get the support of the Committee on JOBS, you're going to have to do this."
In 1992, Gonzalez lost his bid for re-election. In total, he raised $160,000 for his campaign. Four years earlier, he collected $100,000 more than that - and he wasn't even an incumbent. In crossing the committee, Gonzalez says, "I knew my campaign budget was at risk and when your campaign budget is at risk I knew my election was at risk."
Gonzalez does want to make one thing clear, however. The Shorensteins - Walter and Douglas - gave him money for his campaign personally, right up to the limit of personal contributions, after the falling-out with the Committee on JOBS, and helped Gonzalez retire his campaign debt after he was out of office.
Of course, there's nothing like a graceful winner to make everybody look good.
If Douglas Shorenstein is carrying on his father's business and political legacy, two other Shorenstein children - Carole and, posthumously, Joan - fulfill the arts and letters part of any dynasty's hertiage requirements.
Carole Shorenstein Hays is a theater producer who imports Broadway hits to the Tenderloin. A star in one of her productions, Phantom of the Opera, sang at Opening Day this year for the Giants. Behind him, on the Jumbotron, the name of the Curran Theatre - which Walter owns - blazed.
Then there's the Shorenstein Center at Harvard.
Joan Shorenstein Barone was a Washington journalist who died in 1985 of cancer, at the age of 38. After Barone died, her parents, Walter and Phyllis, gave Harvard $10 million to establish the center in her name at the Kennedy School of Government.
The proper name of the center is as follows: The Joan Shorenstein Barone Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. Only nobody calls it that. "Shorenstein Center," they say, when they answer the phone. For all practical purposes, it's Walter's handle on those ivy walls.
Last year, Walter Shorenstein's wife, Phyllis, died. They had been married 49 years. In her will, Phyllis leaves her estate to her husband, to Douglas and to Carole, bringing the family fortunes one step closer to dynastic succession. But dynasty is an elusive phenomenon. Like buildings, a legacy can be demolished faster than it can be constructed. Indeed, history - in particular, the story of the Medici of Florence - shows that power contains the seeds of its own destruction, sowing an inevitable discontent in the minds of the ruled, like grass growing wild up through stone and cement. Scrape it, clean it, sweep it up: It comes back, stronger each time.
