It's the last week of the 2nd Congressional District race, and Merrill Cook is spending a lot of his own cash and getting real help from the National Republican Party while Ross Anderson is claiming foul, foul, foul.
Over the weekend a "comparison" mailer approved by Cook started reaching 200,000 2nd district residences. "It was mailed to just about every (household of every) registered voter," said Kevin Walthers, Cook's campaign manager.The $65,000 mailing was printed and mailed by the National Republican Congressional Committee, the arm of the national party that funds GOP House races.
Cook said the mailer resulted in a 6 percentage point pro-Cook swing in his own tracking polls taken over the weekend, giving him a 25-point lead over Anderson. "These issues (in the mailer) cut my way," said Cook, adding they are effective.
Anderson, Cook's Democratic opponent, said he can't compete with the NRCC spending. The Democratic National Congressional Committee hasn't given Anderson nearly that much help. "We don't have the money to send out mailers that cost $65,000," said Anderson. "However, we will have significant TV and radio buys this last week."
One TV ad that started Tuesday shows Anderson holding up the NRCC flier. Anderson says it lies about his stands. "I want to serve you," says Anderson, but if that means lying and using dirty political tricks, "I won't. I'm just not that desperate," says Anderson.
Anderson says every item on the flier is either a misrepresentation of his position or "an outright falsehood." But Cook says every comment in the flier comes from either a Deseret News or Salt Lake Tribune article and is so noted on the flier.
Anderson said he doesn't know if he can fight back the flood of money that Cook is personally putting in the campaign. Federal campaign reports show that Cook has put $137,000 into the race the past week. All told, Cook has donated $804,000 to his race, or 87 percent of all money raised.
Anderson said he can refute or explain every item in Cook's latest mailer.
- Anderson says he never advocated cutting off Social Security payments to wealthy Americans. In explaining how Social Security could be saved from bankruptcy, Anderson said he told a reporter last spring of several alternatives advocated by others. One was that payments to wealthy Americans could be reduced or eliminated. If required to save Social Security, Anderson says Americans who don't need their total benefits may get less in order to maintain full benefits to those that do need it.
- Cook's "pro-growth" tax cuts "are just supply-side economics all over again, which failed so badly in the 1980s and led to our $5 trillion debt today," said Anderson. Bob Dole's 15 percent tax cut plan includes a $500-per-child tax credit, something that Cook opposed time and again in his 1994 race against Greene, said Anderson. (Cook says the $500 tax credit is low on his list, but he'd vote for it if that was the only tax cut Congress offered).
- Anderson says Cook stated in a newspaper article that he wasn't going to campaign on same-sex marriages this year. Now Cook's taken the low road, says Anderson, exploiting prejudices against the gay and lesbian community for "blatant political gain." (It's one of any number of issues that Cook says he talks about because it matters to 2nd District voters.)
- Finally, Anderson says it is unfair and inaccurate to list at the bottom of the flier in the candidates' backgrounds that Cook is a "Salt Lake businessman" and that Anderson is an "ACLU attorney."
Anderson said he's been in private practice for 18 years and has only handled several pro bono cases "in consultation" with the Utah Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, whose board he served on for part of the 1980s. "I'd say that one-half of 1 percent of my whole 18-year practice is made up of (ACLU) cases." And several of those were critical issues, he added.
One was a class action suit against the Salt Lake City Jail that stopped "strip and body cavity searches" on women arrested for "minor infractions, like traffic violations." Another was a free-speech case where Anderson filed a friend-of-the-court brief against the University of Utah, which was trying to remove student protest shantees.
In almost every national or local media article or profile of Anderson it is mentioned that he was the former president of the local ACLU chapter, said Cook. "He doesn't want to talk about it? We're filling in a part of his resume that he wants to hide," said Cook.
"What Merrill is doing today is a perfect example of how money allows the unscrupulous to buy their way into the U.S. Congress," said Anderson.