Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley is building a grassroots support organization in Utah, his national chairman said Tuesday.
"He is not dismissing Utah or the Mountain West states," said Doug Berman, who is second-in-command in the national Bradley campaign behind only the candidate himself.Local Democrats like Ted Wilson, Joe Hatch, Scott Leckman and other former party officers and candidates will be lined up for Bradley, Berman said.
But it's unclear whether Bradley himself will make an appearance in Utah before the March 10 Western States Presidential Primary. That day Utah and Colorado will hold their first-ever presidential primary vote. Wyoming, which will be part of the GOP March 10 vote, won't hold its Democratic Party caucuses that day, said Hatch, who is the state party treasurer.
"Actually, with just Utah and Colorado in the Democratic primary that day it's a good thing -- you are out there" for all the candidates to see, Berman said.
Bradley has been to the state a number of times. He stopped by in 1982 when, then in the U.S. Senate, he helped raise money for then-U.S. Senate candidate Wilson. Bradley, a former New York Knicks star, did not play in an NBA game in Utah. The Jazz were not a Utah team when Bradley was in the NBA.
"There's a chance Bill could come here. That's not ruled out. Certainly, we'll have surrogates appearing in his behalf," Berman said.
Bradley is interested in the Mountain West states because he believes he'll still be in the hunt for the Democratic nomination during March, which has a number of big-state primaries.
"If you pick up a newspaper and look at a map" of which states were won by Bradley and Vice President Al Gore "and you see big blocks of color (for Bradley) in the Mountain West, in Arizona, in the mid-West," it will not only be impressive but an indication of the senator's support across the nation.
"Actually, Utah is a place where (Bradley) can win some delegates," Hatch explained.
While the Utah Republican Party has adopted a winner-take-all approach to GOP delegates here, Utah Democrats have a proportional delegate system.
Any candidate who receives at least 15 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary March 10 will get some delegates to the national convention. True, Utah only has 29 national delegates out of 2,149 in the convention. "But every delegate counts when you're in the hunt," Berman said.
"You can really make the argument that every citizen vote counts in the Democratic primary March 10. Certainly both Bradley and Gore will get 15 percent of the vote, and so get some delegates here. But if you don't vote for the ultimate winner in the (Utah) Republican primary, your guy doesn't get any delegates and your vote didn't count," Hatch said.
"We're prepared to run against the vice president across this nation," Berman said.
Certainly, if either Bradley or Gore capture decisive victories in the bi-coastal primary March 7 (California, New York and other states) or Super Tuesday in the South March 14, then the race is probably over.
But if the men split support across the early March primaries, then the race will continue through the spring, Berman said. "And we like it that the final primary is New Jersey's on June 6."
Bradley represented New Jersey in the U.S. Senate.