Scott Leckman (D)
General surgeon Scott Leckman says Sen. Bob Bennett only has himself to blame for Leckman's challenge this year. Too many times Bennett voted against "bills that would have helped kids."
Leckman became involved in politics through volunteering with RESULTS, an international group whose goal is to stop the hunger and medical suffering of children.
He ran unsuccessfully for the Utah Senate four years ago. But he decided to take a step up the political ladder this year after becoming frustrated with Bennett specifically and with the U.S. Senate in general.
The federal government just isn't doing what it can to help children and parents, Leckman says.
He's taken after the one-term GOP senator on health-care issues, big tobacco and campaign finance reform. Leckman advocates tripling the child tax credit to $1,500 per taxpayer.
He maintains Bennett's soft on tobacco - accepting at least $2,000 from tobacco firms - and didn't push hard enough to make tobacco firms stop advertising to youths or pay the public costs of tobacco use.
"As a physician, I see the real cost of tobacco use every day in the unnecessary suffering of patients hooked on tobacco," Leckman says.
Bennett's votes on campaign finance reform are shameful, he adds.
This past week, Leckman unveiled his campaign finance reform plan: Each serious candidate for federal office would pick one of two financing tracks - either public financing or private financing. The public financing track would provide 75 percent in public monies equal to the average cost of the past two elections. The private financing route would be similar to today's FEC regulations except that there would be no individual limits on giving, quick disclosure of all contributions and the candidate's opponent could force the privately financed candidate to place the names of some of his biggest donors on his ads.
Robert Bennett (R)
GOP Sen. Bob Bennett says he gladly defends his work over the past six years and believes he's done well enough to be re-hired by voters for another six.
The one-term incumbent says especially since Republicans won control of the U.S. House and Senate in 1994, his efforts have been fruitful and reflect Utah's conservative political beliefs.
While he's been criticized for his votes on tax relief, tobacco regulation and campaign finance reform, Bennett says a fair, objective look at those votes show he's taken the reasonable, workable and conservative tack.
"Politics is a team sport" and it would be foolish to take credit for all the accomplishments of the GOP-controlled Congress over the past four years, Bennett says.
But he did vote for the first real tax cut in 16 years and helped put together the first balanced federal budget in 30 years.
While he supports both higher and secondary education, Bennett says the responsibility for those efforts come at the state and local levels.
"All the well-intentioned good of the federal government" doesn't mean much if the top-down approach is used.
"Thirty years of welfare shows us that," he says.
It took a Republican Congress to reform welfare and send most of its responsibilities to the states, where real reform is taking place, he says.
While he applauds Democrat Scott Leckman's call for tripling the child tax credit to $1,500, "my guess is (Leckman) would be the only Democrat in the Senate to vote for that idea - since increasing the child tax credit to $500 was the Republicans' idea and few Democrats would even vote for that tax cut."
In 1992, Bennett said he would only serve 12 years, assuming he was re-elected in 1998. However, he recently told the Deseret News that he may run for re-election in 2004.
Gary R. Van Horn
(Independent American)
Gary Van Horn says he, not Democrat Scott Leckman, is the alternative to more-of-the-same Bob Bennett. That's because he says Leck-man is just like Bennett.
"We don't have the Republican and Democratic parties in America. We have the Republicats. The Independent American Party is the second party here, the alternative."
Van Horn just keeps plugging along. He ran for governor in 1992, U.S. Senate in 1994 and vice president in 1996.
His party was the American Party early on, merged to become the Independent American a couple of years ago, and after the Nov. 3 election, members will meet to decide if they want to join up with the U.S. Taxpayers Party.
But under different names one thing remained the same: Van Horn and his small party are staunch believers in the U.S. Constitution and believe the document has been perverted and trampled upon by years of Republican and Democratic rule.
An electronic engineer who markets electronic equipment, Van Horn says he's running "to talk about issues no one else wants to talk about."
Van Horn says the U.S. military has become dangerously under-manned and unprepared.
"Bill Clinton has become a war president," not for fighting a war but encouraging someone to make war against the United States, he says.
We're vulnerable to terrorist states, Van Horn says.