The arrogance of the Utah Republican Party is beyond measure. Members so completely want to dominate this state that they cannot stand that there are any Democrats. During the past week, there were several blatant examples of Republican arrogance.

A few days ago, Michael Leavitt announced that he has a new wilderness proposal. While I believe most Democrats welcome Leavitt's new moderate stand, Utahns should ask themselves where Leavitt and the Republicans have been for the past 10 years on issues involving our public lands. The past extremist view of Republicans on wilderness issues is largely responsible for the gridlock we Utahns have experienced in the public lands debate.Clearly, Leavitt must have read the polls showing that the Democratic candidate for governor, Jim Bradley, was effective on the wilderness debate, so Leavitt changed his mind. Republicans do not want to win re-election for the governor, instead they want Leavitt to be unanimously sustained as governor.

Michael Waddoups, a leader in the extreme right wing of the Republican Legislature, is in a very difficult state Senate election against a moderate Democrat, Mary Hammond. Thus, the Republicans are trying to have Waddoups appointed senator so that he can run for election as an incumbent. The Republicans do not want to wait for the voters in Taylorsville-Bennion area to decide whether or not they want to be represented by a right-wing extremist or a moderate.

Over 20 years ago as I attended college, I lived in Minnesota. At that time, Minnesota was dominated by one political party, the Democrats. The Democrats in Minnesota acted with the same arrogance of power as the Republicans now do in Utah. The voters of Minnesota repaid the arrogance by voting the Democrats out of office. The voters of Utah should repay Republican arrogance by voting them out this November.

Joseph E. Hatch

Salt Lake County Democratic chairman

Salt Lake City

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