GOP Gov. Mike Leavitt is on the brink of making history - if he can get more than 69.7 percent of the vote Tuesday.

Leavitt, who is way ahead of Democrat Jim Bradley in the polls and has outspent Bradley 4-to-1 (see accompanying story on B2), clearly hopes to break the gubernatorial Utah election record of former Gov. Calvin Rampton.In 1972, Rampton, a very popular Democratic incumbent, ran for an unprecedented third term. No Utah governor had ever served more than two terms. When J. Bracken Lee tried for a third term in 1956, he was beaten in the GOP primary. Lee, who just died a week ago at age 97, then ran an independent race but lost badly in the final election.

Republicans had a hard time finding a Republican candidate to challenge Rampton in 1972. (Does this sound familiar, but with the parties switched this year?) They came up with local businessman Nicholas Strike. But Strike was outclassed by the more homey Rampton, and the incumbent got 69.7 percent of the vote to Strike's 30.3 percent.

Before that big win, in 1968 Rampton won a second term with 68.6 percent of the vote - the second-highest vote percentage in the state's history.

Rampton's 1972 feat was even more remarkable considering that Republican President Richard Nixon won a landslide victory over Democratic Sen. George McGovern that year. Nixon won 72 percent of the Utah vote in 1972, which means that most voters cast one ballot for Nixon, then switched parties and picked Rampton.

Leavitt won't have that problem this year. Pre-election polls show that Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole is ahead of President Clinton, a Democrat, in Utah.

If Leavitt falls short this year, he might have another chance. Lea-vitt hasn't ruled out a run for a third term in 2000. If successful then, that would make him governor during the 2002 Winter Olympics.

The governor clearly wants a big victory Tuesday. Considering how far ahead in the early, middle and late polls he's been, there really was no need to raise the kind of funds he has this year or spend the $643,348 that his latest campaign reports show.

In his 1992 campaign, Leavitt spent about $1.4 million. But Leavitt had never run for office before and started that race with only 2 percent support, an early poll showed.

In short, Leavitt needed to raise and spend a lot of money in 1992. But Leavitt started this election season with an 80 percent job approval rating - one of the highest ratings ever achieved by a local politician in the history of polling in Utah. The governor raised money all year long, but he didn't start campaigning until after Labor Day and refused to meet Bradley in debates until the fall. As his report shows, Leavitt has packed much of his campaign spending into the last month.

Leavitt's popularity - achieved well before this election season - has, bluntly put, kept Bradley out of the race entirely. (Democrats almost didn't have a candidate to run against Leavitt this year. Bradley agreed to run on the candidate filing deadline day.)

The governor knows what it takes to win big. Leavitt, as a sideline to his family insurance business, in the 1980s ran a Republican consulting/campaign firm. That firm handled the re-election races of GOP Sens. Jake Garn and Orrin Hatch. Both senators faced weak Democratic candidates in the late 1980s, and reportedly both wondered if their campaigns could deliver 70 percent of the vote.

Garn got 72 percent of the vote in his 1986 re-election race; Hatch came up a bit short with 67 percent in his 1988 re-election. Being so closely involved in those races, Leavitt learned how to post the heavy voter numbers.

There are reasons beyond setting a record for Leavitt to win big. In part, a large victory for Leavitt Tuesday gives him even more leverage with the GOP-controlled Legislature to get his programs through.

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It also helps Leavitt on the national stage. National politicians and other governors seem to respect an incumbent who really wins big.

And a large Leavitt vote Tuesday is public vindication for 1992 when Leavitt, facing a strong challenge from then-Independent candidate Merrill Cook and Democrat Stewart Hanson, finished with 42 percent of the vote.

That meant that 58 percent of Utahns in 1992 wanted someone other than Leavitt to be governor.

But Leavitt won't be a minority governor after Tuesday. The ques-tion is whether he will be the most popular governor at the polls in Utah history.

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