As an attorney by profession, Mark Shurtleff says he's used to lawyer jokes, character assassinations and a low level of public trust.
In fact, he makes no efforts to defend the occupation.
"As an attorney, we earn our reputation."
But as someone who embraced politics because he thought he could make a difference, Shurtleff says he finds the public cynicism and distrust disheartening.
"That can grow weary on you, that no matter how hard you serve, no matter how much time you spend, no matter how much time you're studying plat maps and geological surveys and budgets, suddenly you're a villain, you're evil."
Shurtleff closed the door on one political career when he stepped down from his role as Salt Lake County commissioner on Jan. 1.
Days later, he entered another political realm as Utah's newly sworn-in attorney general.
Instead of deflecting angry public sentiment churned by property-tax increases, Shurtleff now turns his attention to fulfilling his duties as the state's top law-enforcement official.
The job takes him back to his first career love — the law, especially as it relates to corrections and public safety.
Shurtleff's ascension to attorney general returns him to an office where he worked for four years on legislation relating to public safety. As a member of the California State Bar, he spent eight years in public practice before returning to Utah. Shurtleff is also a former prosecutor with the Navy's Judge Advocate General's Office.
He also worked as a deputy county attorney in the Salt Lake County Attorney's Office, a position he says unfairly characterized him as "Doug Short's boy" when he decided to campaign for a seat on the county commission.
Short was entrenched in a bitter fight with the Salt Lake County Commission that degenerated into lawsuits settled just this month.
The association, Shurtleff says, cast doubt upon his own personal integrity, doubts he believes he has since shaken off with his performance in office.
"I've spent 15 years as a lawyer but I'm remembered for the eight months I spent with Doug Short."
Despite all the public potshots, leaving the county wasn't the easiest choice for Shurtleff, who says he was strongly tempted to run for county mayor because of his experience as a commissioner.
"I actually loved my two years in office."
The best part, he says, was having the one-on-one contact with residents of Salt Lake County.
"I worked very hard to keep government open, and most every day there was Joe Average Citizen in my office. There is all this talk about helping out those who contributed to campaigns, but the reality is, you spend hundreds of hours with people who never gave you a dime, and couldn't, but that's the most rewarding: doing those small things that help people out that to them aren't small at all."
Shurtleff acknowledges that last month's budget hearings, in which commissioners were vehemently attacked for the county's hefty tax increase, left him stung.
"We were left trying to figure out how to resolve a massive deficit created over the last 10 years. No one knows how many hours were spent on that budget, how much I agonized, how much we struggled. They just think I don't care, that I'm a bully and that I just want to spend people's money. People want to think the worst immediately. Why don't they just assume we did the best we could?"
When Shurtleff looks back on his two years as commissioner, it is the implementation of a countywide crime-reduction plan that makes him most proud, as well as a consolidation of the county's communications for emergency services.
Once a new dispatch center is built, every police and fire department in the county, except Salt Lake City, will have a consolidated dispatch system.
Shurtleff went so far as to sit on the board of the Valley Emergency Communications Center to facilitate the change that he says will unify record-keeping and increase public-safety efficiency.
Right now, he's concentrating on getting acclimated to his new elected position and moving on from his life as county commissioner.
The Tom Clancy fan has piles of books stacked in boxes waiting to be unpacked and admits he's been picking away at writing his own novel.
A history buff with an undergraduate degree in political science, Shurtleff also spends some of his spare time cooking, saying one of his specialities is Spanish rice that is "loaded, not like that flimsy stuff in restaurants."
He also teaches use-of-force classes to law-enforcement students and has a collection of monsters that remind him of a childhood fondness.
"I remember gluing the rats on Wolfman."
His history books tackle an eclectic variety of topics, from Israel to the Navajo Indian.
So what does Shurtleff think history will say about him someday?
He's not entirely optimistic.
"The history will depend," he said, "on whoever writes it."
E-MAIL: amyjoi@desnews.com