Sniping between the Republican candidates for attorney general has picked up as the campaign ambles into the homestretch.
Mark Shurtleff and Frank Mylar are clearly getting on each other's nerves. Their exchanges lately have turned more personal, and they're talking less about how they would run the state's largest law office. Though both conservative politicians, Mylar is the darling of the GOP's right wing with his strident anti-pornography and parental rights crusading. Shurtleff, a Salt Lake County commissioner, appeals to the party's more moderate faction, drawing the endorsement of the Utah Education Association.
Mylar is trying to shake the right-wing tag Shurtleff has hung on him saying, "I think it's really a matter of having more conviction on issues."
Shurtleff counters that Mylar's approach polarizes the party. "As an elected official, you have to bring people together on both sides," he said, adding that doesn't mean you give up your own principles.
While the race has veered in the days preceding the June 27 primary election, Shurtleff and Mylar have shown themselves to be candidates with agendas. Neither cares for the way Democratic Attorney General Jan Graham runs the office and have set down the direction it would take under their leadership. Some of their ideas emerged on a Deseret News questionnaire regarding matters they could encounter in the next four years. They also were allowed to ask each other one question. (See chart on B3.)
At a recent meet-the-candidates event organized by the arch-conservative Utah Republican Assembly, Shurtleff acknowledged that Mylar seems to be the favorite among conservatives. "Some of you think I'm a little to the left of you," Shurtleff told the crowd gathered in Provo's North Park. "But what you need in this office is someone who will not mislead you."
Shurtleff and Mylar, who once worked together in the Attorney General's Office, bickered and nitpicked one another's statements like opposing lawyers in a courtroom. The debate became most heated when Shurtleff referred to Mylar's statement that he has "litigated" cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
"If you think that means he stood up and made arguments before the Supreme Court, you've been misled," Shurtleff told the audience. Mylar has not actually argued a case before the highest court in the land, although he worked on a case that went that far.
Mylar attempted to paint Shurtleff as a liberal.
"He accused me of being a home-schooler, as if that were like being a communist," Mylar said. "It's not." Mylar's wife teaches the couple's two elementary school-age children at home.
Mylar also has tried to link Shurtleff with the UEA, the state's largest teachers union and not the favorite group among conservative Republicans. But Shurtleff responded by telling the Republican Assembly crowd that he did not seek the UEA's endorsement any more than Mylar did when the pair appeared before a UEA panel to answer questions about the campaign.
As for other endorsements, Shurtleff has the support of at least 20 Republican and Democratic county sheriffs statewide. The anti-pornography group Homes Offering Moral Empowerment supports Mylar as do several conservative college law professors.
E-MAIL: romboy@desnews.com