Wow. That was some election this week. It was as if everything that went around came around, if you know what I mean.
Who'd have thought you could pack so much redemption in a single election?
Who'd have thought that the Republican-led redistricting of Utah's 2nd Congressional District — a move about as subtle as a mafia brick through the window — would send Democrat Jim Matheson back to Congress anyway?
Or that the Nuclear Waste Tax Initiative — an attempt by special interests to not only dilute our representative system of government but slide Utah down the slippery slope to California-style lawsuits once the initiatives get voted in — would get swatted down like a weak layup against Mark Eaton when he had a good back?
Or that Jim Jeffords, the turncoat U.S. Senator from Vermont who 19 months ago switched from Republican to Independent in midterm, would go to bed Tuesday night a part of the senate majority and wake up Wednesday morning back in the minority?
And my personal favorite, who'd have thought that the National Republican Party would have George Zinn to thank for helping put it back in power?
George Zinn, by way of introduction, is a Salt Lake resident of Greek extraction who has a talent of seeming to be everywhere. He himself says he's "The Zelig of Salt Lake," after the Woody Allen cinema character who is ever-present, and few would care to argue. Musical concerts, sporting events, political lectures, supermarket grand openings, parades. You name it, George is there. He hasn't missed a Sundance Film Festival since it started.
George's special love is politics, and he has been known to travel great distances for political conventions, rallies and campaigns, which is what took him to Minnesota a month ago to work on the campaign of U.S. Senate Republican hopeful Norm Coleman.
The National Republican Party had targeted Coleman's challenge of incumbent Democrat Paul Wellstone as the keystone race in the GOP's quest to regain the Senate majority. Hearing this, George packed his bag and was off to Minnesota, volunteering to pound signs in lawns, hang up banners and stand on the corner with a "Vote For Norm" sign while whistling "Yankee Doodle" if they wanted him to.
I got a postcard from George while he was back there. He was campaigning at the Mall of America, the "largest mall in the country," that sits in the Minneapolis suburbs.
"Hello from the M of A," wrote George. "This place is so big that it has its own plane schedule. So big that I was only 30 years old and had hair when I started."
Everybody wants to be a humor columnist.
Later, on the phone, I asked George what he was doing in Minnesota, which is when he told me about working for Coleman. "They said they needed help," said George. "They said this could make a difference."
Who'd have thought, a month later, that Wellstone would be killed in a tragic plane crash while campaigning, that former Vice President Walter Mondale would jump in to try to save the seat for the Democrats, that the Democrats would turn Wellstone's funeral service into a campaign rally . . . and that Norm Coleman, the guy George Zinn campaigned for, would win anyway?
America. What a country.
"One man or one woman can make a difference," a politician once said.
That politician was Jim Jeffords.
Who'd have thought it would be George Zinn?
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.