Businessman and former city councilman Keith Christensen opened his campaign for the 2007 Salt Lake mayor's race Monday morning with an endorsement from Rocky Anderson.

The current mayor spoke well of Christensen, 55, at a news conference at the City Library, giving a kick-start to Christensen's 15-month campaign and cementing their public friendship.

"Keith Christensen will be a mayor who will make us all proud," Anderson said. "Keith is a person who really gets it."

Christensen, a Republican, is part owner of a gasoline station chain and started a company that manufactures military-airplane parts, while Anderson, a Democrat, is known for his environmental causes to reduce greenhouse-gas pollution and for his anti-war stance. The two have had their differences: Christensen said, for example, that he never would have protested President Bush's visit to Utah last summer as Anderson did.

But both said Monday that partisanship doesn't belong in municipal races, where the focus should remain on good governance.

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Christensen said that he wants to make Salt Lake City one of the most livable cities in the world. Building on a slew of accolades from magazines such as Money and Outside, he wants the capital to be everyone's zenith.

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