Gov. Mike Leavitt is a planner. And politics can be planned like anything else, he believes.
Accordingly, unlike his predecessors who folded their campaign organizations after election, Leavitt is keeping his going. The Committee For Real and Right - a humorous play on Leavitt's main campaign theme - doing what is real and right - will be active in fund raising and "political activities not appropriate for the governor's office," says LaVarr Webb, Leavitt's 1992 campaign manager, who now serves as his deputy for policy.While the Committee for Real and Right - technically a political action committee - may be active in a number of areas, its main, long-term goal will be Leavitt's re-election in 1996. Re-election? Didn't this guy just finish a $1.7 million, yearlong campaign?
Yes. But remember, Leavitt is a planner. And even before the final votes were counted last Nov. 3, Leavitt was talking about his goals for the next eight years - that's two four-year terms. Few politicians so openly talk about their next term before their first has even begun.
It's not so much ego or showmanship, says Webb. It's that Leavitt believes achieving his major goals - education reform, job growth and creation, and health-care reform - will take more than four years. So why not admit it and go forward.
"It takes substantial revenue to run a re-election campaign," says Webb. "We want to be well prepared."
The committee has already held one fund-raising event. On Feb. 26, a skiing/dining day was held at Deer Valley. About $50,000 was raised, says Chuck Sellier, chairman of the committee. Some of the money was used to pay off lingering campaign debts and expenses from Leavitt's three-month transition that were still pending.
As with other governors, Leavitt's main fund-raising tool will be the yearly Governor's Ball. But he's going to do it differently than former Govs. Scott M. Matheson and Norm Bangerter.
The Matheson and Bangerter balls were formal dinners in area hotels. Bangerter's grew so big that the Little America ballrooms weren't large enough. One year, tables were placed in hallways, with a bit of discreet grumbling about that from some patrons afterward.
Without criticizing the way former balls were handled, Sellier says Leavitt's will be different. Leavitt is from a younger generation, and his ball will be called the Governor's Spring Gala, held in the Salt Palace so everyone sits in the same room, says Sellier.
"It will be a multimedia experience," says Sellier, who owns and runs Sun International, a private TV/movie production company. It will have a video wall and laser lights, and the entertainment of the Capitol Steps, a satirical comedy troupe from Washington D.C. The Steps will cost about $10,000, and no doubt will have a few cutting remarks about Leavitt, as well, Sellier says.
"This ball . . . er gala, will be very different from previous ones. The tone. The texture. This is a new administration," says Sellier. Previous balls netted, after expenses, about $100,000. Sellier expects the same net from Leavitt's gala. Tickets will be $150 per person or $1,500 per table.
Not only will the ball look different, it will be marketed differently, says Webb. In the past, some well-known lobbyists took it upon themselves to sell tables at the ball. When several came calling earlier this year asking to do the same favors for Leavitt, they were politely told they could certainly buy their own tables - as they have before - but weren't going to be able to sell tables to anyone else.
Leavitt's Committee For Real and Right will use contribution lists from his campaign as well as other sources to market his ball, says Webb.
Aside from fund raising and Leavitt's 1996 re-election, the committee will be active in other - yet unspecified - realms, Webb adds. It will pay for periodic polling on a number of issues, including Leavitt's popularity, and could well become an advocacy group for issues close to Leavitt's heart.
For example, Leavitt plans to have several health-care alternatives on the 1994 ballot for citizen consideration. Should Leavitt decide on a personal favorite among those options, the committee could become active in selling that alternative - an action Leavitt wouldn't want to use state funds for. The committee could buy TV or radio advertising pushing that alternative before the vote, conduct polling and so forth. If other issues arose that Leavitt wanted to spend non-taxpayer dollars on, the committee would be the vehicle, Webb says.