Four men, all Democrats, are in the Salt Lake mayor's race, each trying to carve out a measly 6,000 votes that could get him out of the October primary and into the November final election.
While several others have filed campaign papers, the four -- Dave Jones, Jim Bradley, Rocky Anderson and Stuart Reid -- are the main contenders now. Each may spend $200,000 to $400,000, walk miles of neighborhood streets, talk to thousands of voters.The prize is the top locally elected office in the state, a politician who at times rivals the governor for media attention and who will be the Utah face the world watches when the city hosts the 2002 Winter Olympics.
How do these four men divvy up the votes? Who are their constituencies? Which two of the four sit on the bubble of the primary election?
Jones knows that bubble.
In 1991, he was third, just 89 votes behind mayoral candidate Dave Buhler, in the primary, knocked out of a final bid against eventual winner Deedee Corradini.
"The number 89 is burned into my forehead. I saw it for years," Jones remembers. Of the four major contenders that year, Jones spent the least on the primary, raising the question of what could he have done to get 90 more votes?
Jones, Bradley, Anderson and Reid all fear they could come up just a little short this October and have to live with such a close defeat. An analysis of the 1995 primary showed 6,000 votes could put a candidate in the final race.
So today, months before most city residents are thinking about the mayor's election, the four announced candidates are consumed with planning, raising money and putting together a winning strategy.
For Reid, the admitted "moderate"
among the four, his strategy is a neces- sary, but dangerous, one: Get GOP votes in the primary and try to hold on for the final.
While a Democrat and member of the state Democratic Party's Executive Committee, Reid will clearly position himself to the right of the current field. In the absence (at least now) of a recognizable Republican in the officially nonpartisan race, Reid will look to Republicans and conservative independents to get him out of the primary.
"I believe I'll appeal to the moderate group," says Reid, a former Salt Lake City Council member from Rose Park who now heads the city's community and economic development office.
"I don't think a Republican can win the mayoralship (of Salt Lake City)," says Reid. But "if a strong Republican got in this race, I would be squeezed -- I don't think I could win in that case. But I don't think a strong Republican will get in."
He met recently with GOP Gov. Mike Leavitt about his candidacy, although Leavitt spokeswoman Vicki Varela says Leavitt has no plans now to endorse Reid.
When a reporter called on Reid in his new campaign offices, former GOP executive director Spencer Stokes was just ending a meeting. And Reid has hired Caroline Roemer to manage his mayoral race. Roemer ran GOP Rep. Merrill Cook's 1998 re-election effort and during the 1999 Legislature served as the House Republicans' public relations person.
Still, outgoing Salt Lake County Republican chairman Bill Quist promises a search committee is looking for a candidate for the mayor's race. "We'll have someone," says Quist.
Deseret News pollster Dan Jones says the city is about 34 percent Democratic, 32 percent Republican and the rest independent. But, Dan Jones adds, usually those independents vote for Democrats. He says that 49 percent of city residents say they're members of the LDS Church.
Reid will likely be looking there, as well. A former Mormon military chaplain, Reid also worked for the LDS Church.
A lion's share of Democrats
Dave Jones, Bradley and Anderson -- while saying they'll get their share of Republican and independent votes in the race, too -- will also carve up the hard-core Democratic vote.
Jones points to his 10 years of winning elections from his Avenues Utah House district as his firm base. "My district is one-seventh of the city. These people know me, have voted for me for years. In 1998, I won 70 percent of the vote" in the district.
The 5,611 votes Jones received a year ago is a good start, but he had a weak Republican opponent. Will those voters stick by him when there's three other Democrats on the mayoral ballot?
Anderson, an attorney in private practice who lost to U.S. Rep. Merrill Cook in 1996 in the 2nd Congressional District race, believes some of the stands he took in the 1996 race -- that may have hurt him -- will aid him now.
Criticized by Cook for being pro-choice, supportive of gay and Lesbian civil rights and against the death penalty, Anderson believes the more liberal city residents will find his citizen-activist politics to their liking.
The politics of partisanship
"I'm not known for politics (like other mayoral candidates), but for my work in the community," says Anderson. And not holding an elective office before will be a plus -- for he hasn't dealt the politics of partisanship and division, he says.
Bradley, meanwhile, believes the very connections he made as a commissioner will be his base in the mayor's race.
Bradley served on the commission from 1990 to 1994, when Republican Mary Callaghan upset him. As commissioner, Bradley oversaw the Salt Palace, economic development activities and the arts.
A real wild card
The primary, says Bradley, is a wild card. You work for months, spend a lot of money and effort, and can finish third and be out by only a handful of votes.
"Every one of us four will have a strategy to win in that primary. And if you heard them, they'd all make sense. But so few people vote in the primary. There is so much going on (by the various candidates, trying to get someone's attention), that it's almost impossible to quantify," says Bradley.
Anderson is already putting up lawn signs -- eight months from October's primary -- in a clear attempt to show grassroots support. The other three, for now, are busy raising money and lining up endorsements.