ALPINE — The popular portrait of George Washington kneeling in prayer beside his horse dominates the small reception area of GOP U.S. Senate candidate Mike Lee's campaign headquarters.
It's the same Arnold Friberg work beloved by conservative leaders nationwide, including former President Ronald Reagan, as well as members of the LDS Church familiar with Friberg's Book of Mormon paintings.
To Lee and many others, "The Prayer at Valley Forge" embodies what they believe is the divine inspiration that led to the founding of the country and the writing of the U.S. Constitution.
"In my faith, the LDS faith, we do feel the Constitution has divine origins," said Lee, who has made his adherence to the document the centerpiece of his campaign. Citing scripture from the LDS Doctrine and Covenants, he explained, "people weren't meant to live in bondage, and this document protects them from that."
It's a message Lee readily acknowledges resonates with other members of Utah's dominant faith. It's something "a religious person will regard as sacred," he said.
"When people feel passionately about something, they tend to feel and exhibit something you may appropriately describe as religious zeal."
It's also a message that likely helped vault Lee, an attorney with no political experience, into a primary race against Tim Bridgewater, who'd run twice before for Congress, without success. The pair had taken advantage of the anti-incumbent sentiment sweeping the nation to defeat longtime Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, at the Republican state convention in May.
Lee isn't about to stray from his focus on the Constitution just because the GOP primary is over and he is widely viewed as headed to an easy victory in November over Democrat Sam Granato. Utah hasn't elected a Democratic U.S. senator since 1970.
"The Constitution will continue to play a very prominent role in what I believe and what I campaign on," Lee said. "Anytime I'm talking about my analytic framework about what will guide me as a U.S. senator, yeah, that's going to be part of it every single time."
But as Lee readies himself for a general election race that isn't expected to get under way until after Labor Day, he is beginning to sound a little more pragmatic. For starters, he said, he isn't taking a win for granted.
"In an election year when a Republican can win in Massachusetts, you have to assume anything is possible, and a Democrat can win in Utah," Lee said, referring to GOP Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown's succeeding the late Democratic icon, Ted Kennedy.
And while Lee insists he'll never compromise his principles, he said there may be times when he would support something that may not strictly pass his constitutionality test.
Like continued funding for ongoing mass transit projects, for example. While Lee said such projects shouldn't be the work of the federal government unless they cross state lines, he could argue that stopping them midway would create serious problems.
"There may be some federal projects out there sometime which I never would have voted for at the onset, that I might have to consider," he said, because not finishing them could create a public nuisance.
"We start where we are and not where we wish we were," Lee said.
His campaign, however, appears to be right where he wants it. Lee continues to collect cash, including from several recent fundraisers in Washington, D.C. Now, he said, he is able to start paying at least some members of his formerly all-volunteer staff.
And after back-to-back party elections — first at the May 8 state convention, then at the polls in the June 22 primary — Lee said he's relishing the next vote still being more than three months away.
It's given him time to get the campaign headquarters cleaned. Located in a tidy office complex just a few blocks from the Lee family's home in Alpine, the place appeared pristine.
Aside from the framed Friberg reproduction, the only signs that the office space is even being used are a few filled candy jars, some helium tanks, a couple of campaign posters and a life-size cardboard cutout of Ronald Reagan.
Lee said before the cleaning crew arrived, the headquarters was a mess after serving as home base to a busy campaign staff and hundreds of volunteers.
"It was like a frat house after a party," he joked, then quickly corrected himself. "Well, I went to BYU, so I don't know. Maybe like a pseudo frat."
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