Think the federal government and the U.S. presidency aren't as powerful as they used to be?
Think again. Utah got hit with a tidal wave this past week. Over a 14-day period in a presidential election year, Utah got a huge new national monument. Now nearly all of central-southern Utah is designated as national parks, monuments or recreational areas.What do these latest actions tell us?
1. President Clinton - who hasn't set foot in this state in four years and never actually saw the area he named as a new national monument - couldn't care less about public opinion here.
Clinton finished third in Utah in the 1992 election; it was the only state in the nation to snub him like that. And he apparently hasn't forgotten.
Nearly every political analyst who has written about the electoral college vote this November puts Utah squarely in Republican Bob Dole's column.
And Clinton is way ahead in state-by-state electoral college polls and almost certainly doesn't need (and can't count on) Utah's paltry five electoral college votes. (It takes 270 votes to win the presidency, and most national reviews of the race so far give Clinton more than 300.)
2. There are real-world consequences to being a one-party state and to having some confrontational members in Congress.
Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, has been a confrontational politician for all his 16 years in Congress. He hasn't gotten along with the press, with Democrats and sometimes even with members of his own party here and in Washington, D.C. He seems to take joy in verbally kicking environmental groups and their supporters.
Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbit, baited by Hansen earlier this year over wilderness proposals in Utah, has taken Hansen up on the challenge to conduct a new inventory of Utah wilderness, with the intent of finding more acreage to fit the wilderness designation.
Now, the new national monument isn't Hansen's fault. It's Clinton's alone. But there's a difference between disagreeing and being disagreeable. And my guess is that there are some Clinton administration officials who are just gloating over the new monument and privately saying: "In your face, Hansen."
3. While Clinton may be talking day in and day out about how Americans in the upcoming elections have to restore control of the U.S. House to Democrats, Clinton clearly thinks Rep. Bill Orton, D-Utah, is expendable.
Orton, after all, isn't a very loyal Democratic voter in the House, anyway.
Orton says a review of how he voted during Republican President George Bush's administration compared with a review of how he voted during Clinton's time shows that he supported Bush about as much as he's supported Clinton.
So, it appears, Clinton thinks having Orton in the next Congress or not isn't going to make a lot of difference in his success in the House.
That's the conclusion I draw, because Clinton's actions this past week could be the final factor in Orton's tough re-election race.
Orton, of course, is trying to put the best face on the matter. He says his job is to represent his people, regardless of what any sitting president does.
But we elect House members, one would think, to be effective. And being effective is more than just talking. It's getting things done and bringing home the federal pork, if that's required.
Clinton's actions are certainly a slap in the face to one of his own party's members - Orton.
In his Grand Canyon speech, Clinton appeared to give in on a number of issues. In fact, reading reports on how the new monument will be managed, I find it hard now to see how anything in southern Utah will change much: Grazing and water rights continue, and the Bureau of Land Management, not the Park Service, will continue managing the lands.
But Orton is in a tight race in a very Republican district, and not having the president from his own party give his concerns serious consideration certainly can't help his re-election hopes.
All in all, Clinton did Utah dirt this past week. The memory of former Democratic President Jimmy Carter putting the Central Utah Project's water money on a hit list comes to mind.
The difference back then was that Congress - and Utah's GOP-dominated delegation - had a say in water-project funding. And the CUP was saved.
Clinton created the new national monument all on his own.
Looks like America isn't as much a democracy as we believed. The 1906 law under which Clinton acted should be changed to at least require congressional concurrence. And Clinton shouldn't worry about coming to Utah this year (or any time soon, either).
And Utah Democratic candidates - who actually had hopes that Clinton could take Utah this year or come close - should consider taking the word "Democrat" off their campaign signs. Once again, actions by national Democratic Party leaders have harmed Democrats in the state.