LOS ANGELES — Tonight, as Vice President Al Gore accepts the Democratic Party's presidential nomination from the podium of the Staples Center, he'll be perhaps 50 yards away from the Utah delegation.
It's as close as Gore will likely get to a group of Utahns this campaign season.
And a few Utahns here say that's fine. Utah Democratic races down the ticket may not be helped by a Gore visit to the heavily Republican Utah. Some could even be harmed, those delegates said.
But they said a campaign visit or two by Gore's vice presidential running mate, Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., is a different story.
Everyone wants him.
The official party line is that Utah Democrats will welcome a presidential nominee anytime.
"Will (Gore) come? No," state party Executive Director Todd Taylor said. "There are battleground states in this election and Utah isn't one of them."
But would 3rd Congressional District candidate Donald Dunn, running in the area battered by the creation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by the Clinton-Gore administration just before the 1996 election, want Gore in Utah campaigning for him?
"No," Dunn said succinctly Wednesday after holding a fund-raiser in downtown L.A. that he hopes will bring in $10,000.
"But yes for Lieberman. And we've already asked that he come," said Dunn, who, like Lieberman, is Jewish. "I think Sen. Lieberman would energize my constituency — all Utahns."
As the campaign worker in another Utah race said: "Gore wouldn't help us. He could hurt. But Lieberman, absolutely help. We'd love to see him" campaigning in the state.
There are no illusions about Gore in Utah or Gore winning in Utah.
"We won't carry Utah, we know that," former Clinton Cabinet member Henry Cisneros told the Utah delegation Wednesday. "And we won't carry Texas (Cisneros' home state), either.
"But (Democrats) in both states have an obligation to work hard. There are races Democrats can win in Utah."
Russell Kennedy, a Utah delegate who is running Karen Crompton's campaign for the new post of Salt Lake County mayor, said Lieberman would be a great draw in Utah and help Crompton's chances.
"Ours may be the third largest race in the state" (behind the statewide U.S. Senate and governor's contests) this year," Kennedy said. "But in terms of visibility, we're way down there. And it really does matter how Vice President Gore and Sen. Lieberman do in Utah."
Feeling good about the Democratic presidential ticket "is critical to the mind-set of the voters" in Salt Lake County, which makes up nearly half of the state's population, Kennedy said.
"We won't shy away from the Gore/Lieberman ticket," said Kennedy.
"We want people to really examine the political and personal lives of Gore and Lieberman. These are men who reflect Utah's core values: They are committed to their wives and children, to public service, to their religion."
Look at Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew, said Kennedy. "He won't campaign on Saturdays. Well, doesn't that sound familiar in Utah, where we don't campaign on Sundays? People respect that."
Taylor, Dunn, Kennedy and lieutenant governor candidate Karen Hale, who is also a state senator, all said they hope Lieberman will come and believe he will.
Several delegates said Democrats should play up the fact that Lieberman wrote a book jacket blurb for LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley's new best-selling book "Standing for Something." Others said that aspect needs to be carefully handled to not offend church leaders and faithful church members.
"It's not just the dust cover for President Hinckley," said Hale. "Lieberman would be a great ambassador in Utah for national Democrats and help us, to see Joe Lieberman and what he really stands for, his values, his strong religion, his compassion. These are Utah values and what Utah Democrats stand for also."
But all is not perfect with this ticket in Utah. Gore needs to stay away from some rural environmental issues, or Utah Democrats could be harmed.
Dunn said he grabbed Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt by both arms on Monday and told him: "No more new monuments." Dunn said Babbitt replied: "You mean no new monuments before the election."
"No," said Dunn. "No new monuments in Utah at all."
And abortion is never a winning issue in Utah, either, for the Democrats.
Kathleen McConkie Collinwood, who is running against Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, in the 1st District, said she and many Utah Democrats are more conservative on social issues than the national party and she hopes that the Gore-Lieberman ticket does not emphasize those issues.
"I think Utahns have a hard time separating out differences between the national party and the local party and its candidates," she said.
"Somehow, we need to get out the message that we are at odds" with Gore's more liberal stands on issues such as abortion.
"Choice is still a hot-button issue in Utah," she said. "But people like myself, Bill Orton, Scott Howell and even Donald Dunn take a position that is essentially the same as the LDS Church." It opposes abortion except in instances of rape, incest or threats to the mother's well-being.
"But," concluded Taylor, "no way Gore could drag our (state) ticket" down like Clinton did in 1992 and 1996."
Taylor said Clinton "absolutely harmed us" in 1992 when he finished third in Utah behind then-President George Bush and Ross Perot, the only time in the state's history in which a major party presidential candidate did so poorly.
E-MAIL: bbjr@desnews.com or lee@desnews.com