You've got your way of campaigning for your next election, Merrill Cook has his.
At the moment, the two-term U.S. congressman from Salt Lake City and vicinity is holed up in a fourth-floor courtroom in the Matheson Courthouse, slugging it out over invoices, contracts, collections and recollections dating back to the free-wheeling days of '96, when Cook wrenched the Republican torch out of Enid Greene's slipping grip and spent his way to victory.
At issue — emphasis on the last three letters of that word — is whether Cook still owes political consultant Ron Nielson $200,000 from the '96 campaign. Cook says no. Nielson says yes. Hey, it's why we build courthouses.
With barely a month to go before the Republican convention that will decide whether to again nominate Cook, the timing for Cook to be sued couldn't be much worse. Regardless of who's right, the whole sordid affair of fighting with a former teammate has a Don King kind of feel to it.
If Nielson were still his consultant, you know what he'd tell Cook: Pay the guy what he says you owe him and move on.
Come to think of it, that's exactly what Nielson is telling him.
Finally, a consultant giving a politician free advice.
Besides acrimony, what's also on public display in Judge Sandra Peuler's courtroom is the reality of campaign finance.
It might be boring. It might be tedious. But wade through all the ledger sheets and consulting fees and this is what smacks you in the face like a James Carville sound bite:
Consultants make more than the politicians they're advising.
For the 1996 congressional race alone, Ron Nielson and his firm got around $200,000 from Cook that's already in the books, and they're suing for twice that.
All so Cook could win a two-year job at $141,300 a year.
And consulting was just the start of the expenses. Cook spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money in the '96 campaign and several hundred thousand more in 1998.
To break even, he's got to stay hired until he's about 80.
His predecessor, Congresswoman Greene, spent even more during her campaign in 1994, when a million-dollar thrust in the final weeks beat back challenges from both Cook and incumbent Karen Shepherd.
Greene's money, it would be learned later, was a mirage, a figment of her then-husband Joe Waldholtz's imagination.
But for all his sociopathy, hand it to Joe Waldholtz. He understood campaign finance.
Those who spend the dollars win.
It's like that old farmer joke.
Farmer wins the lottery, gets a million dollars.
He's asked what he plans to do with all that money.
"Oh," he answers, "just keep farmin' till it's gone."
Fifteen or so years ago, Merrill Cook and his father, the estimable Melvin Cook, a kind of Thomas Edison of the Rockies, won a jury verdict in excess of $4 million in a breach-of-contract trial over slurry explosives invented by Melvin Cook. At the time, it was one of the largest civil verdicts ever in a Utah court.
Ever since, Merrill has been spending his share on political races.
Four years ago, when he won the '96 congressional seat, it finally paid off — job-wise if not dollar-wise.
Now, with a new race about to begin, the congressman and one of the guys who helped him win his first race are bickering publicly over money.
It appears as if Merrill plans to just keep runnin' till it's gone.
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.