From Time Magazine to the Fox News Channel — not to mention all across the blogosphere — the U.S. media have noticed Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson's anti-war speech this week.
It's not every day a mayor is involved in an anti-war protest during a presidential visit. But throw in that Utah is widely considered one of the nation's most conservative states, and you have the makings of a story of national interest.
"Wow. And this guy is the Mayor of the biggest city in ... Utah?" blogger Bob Geiger wrote in the liberal blog The Huffington Post under the headline, "SLC Mayor Rocky Anderson: A Righteous Dude in a Wrong State."
Anderson spoke at Wednesday's "We the People for Peace and Justice" rally at Washington Square, and when Bush was in town for a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention last year, Anderson did the same. Both times, the mayor's fans lauded his outspokenness, while his critics said he had overstepped his role as mayor.
Anderson's office did not return phone calls or e-mails seeking comment Thursday. In an e-mail to the mayor's spokesman Patrick Thronson earlier this month, Anderson's chief of staff Sam Guevara wrote that the office should emphasize that "neither Mayor Rocky Anderson nor Mayor Anderson's staff organized a rally during any visit to Utah by President Bush. Utah groups and organizations coordinated all the rallies in Salt Lake City."
Still, the anti-war rally has been largely regarded as "Rocky's protest," and that seems to be how many members of the national media have seen it.
While a story in Thursday's Los Angeles Times had the headline, "Salt Lake mayor joins war protest," one on the Fox News Channel's Web site credited Anderson with more: "Salt Lake mayor organizes anti-war protest near Bush speech."
Salt Lake City Councilman Carlton Christensen thinks that focus on Anderson is just what the mayor wanted.
"The publicity is focused on him and not the city as a whole," Christensen said. "It makes me question what the mayor's motives may be at the end of the day."
But blogger Cliff Lyon, who volunteered as Anderson's communications manager in the early days of his administration, believes such speeches are exactly what the voters wanted from Anderson when they put him in office.
"There's a complete disconnect in Salt Lake. The people who don't like what Rocky has done think that Rocky's responsibility is to represent a constituency that he simply does not represent," Lyon said. "We re-elected Rocky, and we expect Rocky to speak on our behalf."
Lyon said he encouraged Anderson to begin blogging, and while the mayor was initially resistant, he has begun posting on the Daily Kos, a liberal blog with one of the Internet's largest followings. Lyon has also started a Web site, www.thankyourockyanderson.org, to allow people across the country to express their support for Anderson's activism.
City councilwoman Nancy Saxton, who is running for mayor in 2007 and is rarely an Anderson fan, disagrees with those who say he was out of line.
"I don't see a problem with an elected official choosing to be in a protest," she said.
E-mail: dsmeath@desnews.com