After responding for a week to claims he was too liberal and couldn't win the 2nd Congressional District race this year, Democrat Ross "Rocky" Anderson struck back Monday with two beloved Democrats who support him - former Gov. Cal Rampton and former U.S. Sen. Frank Moss.
"The only complaint I've heard about Rocky from any Democrat is the claim he's too liberal," said Rampton. "Which is rather amusing to me because he is supposed to be liberal. I regard myself as a liberal, yet I ran the state rather well for 12 years."Rampton was governor from 1965 to 1977.
"Frank Moss was a liberal, yet all over this state you see assets that are a result of his 18 years in the U.S. Congress," said Ramp-ton.
Last week, local attorney Jim McConkie got out of the 2nd District Democratic race, saying the state party was being held hostage by special interest groups like gay and lesbian rights and pro-choice advocates.
Powerful Democratic special-interest groups support Anderson, claims McConkie, and that will lead to a disastrous primary battle and ultimately a loss for Democrats in November.
McConkie called on a good, moderate Democrat to get in the race against Anderson.
Monday, House Minority Whip Kelly Atkinson filed in the 2nd District, with a number of party leaders and elected Democrats sup-port-ing him and saying he was a moderate who could win. Atkinson said in his Monday announcement he supported McConkie, and when McConkie got out of the race, "my phone started ringing with moderate, loyal Democrats asking me" to drop his state Senate race and get into the 2nd District.
Anderson addressed some of those "moderate" Democrats in his Monday press conference, saying Rampton, Moss and other elected Democrats who shared the main Salt Lake library stage with the two former leaders had not sold out their values for the sake of political expediency.
Those supporting Anderson "are not the people who ran from principle or tough challenges for the sake of political expediency. They are people who have hung tough and who have lived their lives personally and politically with courage and unwaiving commitment," said Anderson.
He said he wouldn't have considered entering the race if a "person with a solid record of achievement and a commitment to a core of Democratic values" had gotten in the race.
Clearly, Anderson doesn't think that McConkie fit that bill because McConkie had been an announced candidate - and had been called a consensus Democratic candidate by state Democratic chairman Mike Zuhl - before Anderson announced.
Hinting that some Utah Democrats are giving in to popular opinion or conservative thought in the state, Anderson said previous Democratic state leaders "haven't checked first with the pollsters to determine the course of their conduct, rather they have an internally consistent set of values that has always guided their decisions and their actions."
Rampton said a primary race can be a good thing, if it is conducted on the issues, not on per-son-al-it-ies. He believes any primary between Atkinson and Anderson will be so conducted. Rampton said his 1964 primary helped him, for it brought him name recognition.
But Democrats haven't had many successful primaries in recent years. In his statement a week ago, McConkie gave the example of the 1992 Democratic governor's race. Then, attorney Pat Shea, who is not pro-choice, was beaten in the primary by attorney Stewart Hanson, who is pro-choice, in what McConkie says was a clear example of how the party rejected the best candidate for the politically correct candidate. Hanson went on to place third behind Independent Merrill Cook in the final election.
Also in 1992, Wayne Owens came within 18 votes in the Democratic state convention of eliminating challenger Doug Anderson in the U.S. Senate race. A bitter primary followed and Owens won, but he never recovered and lost the final election to GOP Sen. Bob Bennett.
In an attempt to avoid such primaries, Democrats changed their convention rules. Previously, a candidate had to get 70 percent of the delegate vote to win the nomination at the convention. In 1996 it will only take 60 percent of the delegate vote to win outright and avoid a primary.