Derek Smith likes to take advantage of an opening. He's done it in business. Now he's trying politics.
Smith, a 35-year-old Internet millionaire, entered the 2nd Congressional District GOP race with just minutes left to file on March 17.
But when he decides to do something, he doesn't hold back. Last week he started a $200,000 TV ad campaign, funded with his own money, that will run through the May 6 state Republican Convention.
At that convention one of the three top contenders — Smith, Rep. Merrill Cook and capital venturist Jeff Wright — will be knocked out of the Republican race. (Cook told the Deseret News late last year that he'd consider running a write-in campaign for his seat should GOP delegates throw him out.)
If one of the Republicans manages to get 60 percent of the delegate vote in the 2nd District, he will become the nominee. If not, the two top vote-getters go to a June 27 Republican primary.
Smith believes he will survive the convention. Why?
"Because I'm the only candidate that can beat (Democrat) Jim Matheson in the fall. And this election (for the Republicans) is only about one thing — electability," said Smith.
"Other issues are important. But where I stand, or where anyone stands on them, is meaningless if Republicans don't hold the seat."
Smith traces his Utah heritage back to the pioneers (he lives just miles from where his great-great-grandfather quarried granite in Little Cottonwood Canyon.) Born in Utah, Smith was reared in Boise, where he graduated from high school.
He returned to Salt Lake City in 1983 and has lived here since.
Smith always loved business, starting his first in high school. "I was one term short of graduating (from the University of Utah). But I decided to go to BYU Law School." Bad choice. He stayed less than two months.
"What I really wanted to do was start my own business. Not be a lawyer. I'd already started a new firm, so I quit (school) and did that." The business took off. And one led to another. Several years ago Smith, a millionaire who declines to state his exact worth, started iEngineer with a friend and business associate.
The firm uses the Web to help engineering firms communicate electronically with their clients and others. While not a publicly traded .com yet, Smith says "within the near future" an initial public offering will be coming.
Smith says he was always interested in politics. The time was not right.
But when Mark Emerson, Rep. Chris Cannon's former chief of staff, got out of the Republican race in the 2nd District in March because he wasn't rich and couldn't self-fund a challenge to Cook, Smith hired Emerson's campaign manager, consultant and media buyer.
Suddenly, he had an organization.
Why pick Smith over Cook or Wright?
"I'm the only one who has built businesses from scratch." (Cook joined his father in starting a new mining explosives firm; Wright inherited much of his wealth.)
"I have children in the public schools today. I know, better than most, the new economy that's coming to Utah and the world. I've seen first-hand how government, especially the federal government, can depress small business. Because that's what I am, small business."
"I've created hundreds of clean jobs. And I know I can beat Matheson."
Confidence is good. But a new Deseret News/KSL-TV poll by Dan Jones & Associates shows that Smith, Cook and Wright all do about the same against Matheson in separate, head-to-head match-ups. The Democrat leads each Republican about 2-to-1, Jones found.
Smith on several issues:
In general, Smith doesn't support more gun control laws. "Enforce the ones we have," he says. However, if background checks for all purchases at gun shows (a sticking point in Congress now) can be "done immediately, at the show," then Smith supports it. "I don't want people having to wait several days. That basically destroys the gun-sellers' living. And I don't want government harming small business."
He's strongly pro-life and favors the death penalty.
He wants a flat-rate federal income tax with no deductions. Smith says before Utahns will support that they must come to understand that giving income tax exemptions for mortgage interest and charitable contributions (both big in Utah where there is a large percent of homeowners and members of the LDS Church who give 10 percent of their income in tithing) "opens the door" to destroying a flat tax. A flat tax "must be uniform and fair throughout the country, for everyone, or it won't work."
He favors somehow giving parents tax breaks to help educate their children, either in public or private schools. Vouchers may not be the way, he said. "And I certainly don't want people paying money to Washington and trying to get it back again" in some form to spend on private schools. "We should just let them keep it in the first place and use it to help" their public or private schools. "I'm not out to harm public schools. By choice, my oldest child goes to a public school. But we have to give parents and teachers back the power to run their schools. Every teacher I talk to says if we give them choices (in how to spend their classroom funds), public schools" will do just fine.
You can reach Bob Bernick Jr. by e-mail at bbjr@desnews.com