Insightful Blog on the American Fork debate on June 1, 2010

http://www.localcommentary.com/davidblog/2010/20100601.htm

Relevant portion below:

Introduction

American Fork's historic City Hall was the scene tonight of a debate among school board, county commission, US House of Representatives, and US Senate candidates who will be on the ballot for the June 22 primary. Hosted by the American Fork Youth City Council and competently moderated by American Fork City Councilor Shirl LeBaron, the event drew a standing-room-only crowd of more than 130, nearly all of whom stayed for the whole two hours.

The first hour, which I will discuss here, was devoted to candidates in all the races which have primaries, except the US Senate race. The second hour was entirely devoted to Republican Senate candidates Mike Lee and Tim Bridgewater and will be the subject of a separate blog post, which I will begin writing as soon as I have finished and posted this one.

In both hours, questions were written and submitted by the audience, then selected, combined, edited, etc., by the moderator. In the first hour, two minutes were allotted for each opening and closing statement, and one minute for each response by each candidate.

Disclaimers

First disclaimer: As usual here, I will not attempt to provide a detailed blow-by-blow account of the evening, let alone a transcript. I will summarize a lot, quote a little, analyze when the mood strikes, and simply ignore what I don't think was relevant or interesting. I'm not even trying to be chronological or comprehensive.

Second disclaimer: I walked in the door already having personal favorites in all races but one, the primary race for the US House seat from Utah's Second District, between Jim Matheson and Claudia Wright. (I won't be voting in that race at all.) In the county commission and senate races, I have actually cast votes for a candidate at either the county or state Republican convention. In the case of the school board race, one candidate's sign is on my lawn.

Despite my leanings -- some strong, some not -- I flatter myself that I have enough experience in campaign politics to allow some objectivity in evaluating candidates' performance at the event. And in case you're curious, I note that none of my preferences changed as a result of the evening's event, though the possibility existed.

Final disclaimer: What you get is here is what I think. I don't know and will not attempt to evaluate whether it will please you or any given candidate or not. If you disagree, or if I get something wrong, feel free to comment.

To communicate with candidates or view their Web sites, look them up in the Utah County candidates list.

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County Commission Seat A: Anderson vs. Wright (Republicans)

I didn't hear anything new in the county commission race. Overall, I'd give challenger Joel Wright an A- for the evening, and incumbent Gary Anderson a B+. In the interest of full disclosure, I note that I voted for Joel Wright at convention. (Four years ago, to be sure, I voted for Anderson.)

In his opening statement, Wright explained how the county commission seats work in Utah County; this was probably helpful to more than a few in attendance. There are three seats, two of which are up for election this year. All three are county-wide; they don't represent specific districts. Wright also said he wants to focus on regional issues, such as transportation and crime, which require attention on more than a city-by-city level. He also said nice things about limited government -- as did everyone else who spoke, I think, except possibly Ted Barratt, Jim Matheson's surrogate.

Anderson emphasized his support among the law enforcement community and his work in getting the county to address long-overdue transportation issues. He noted that he hasn't raised taxes, and he won't.

Here I must insert a disclaimer: Utah's truth-in-taxation law is perverse, as I've said before. It not only requires rate decreases (or unchanged rates) to be treated as tax increases in many cases; it allows candidates to claim that taxes weren't raised, even though rates went up. Anderson's approach to this is to proclaim his own purity of record and intent. Wright's is to use numbers to show that taxes increased even if there wasn't technically a tax increase. It's unnecessary complex and obscure, but it's the state legislature's fault, not these candidates'.

Wright insisted that there have been large increases in the county budget; Anderson says there have been no increases. Wright promises to roll back the latest pay increase for county commissioners; Anderson evaded this theme and talked about pay increases for county employees at large.

Wright said that a $40 million convention center should have been put to the voters, if it was going to be done at all.

Anderson boasted that Utah County has the lowest taxes and the smallest staff (per capita) among all Utah counties, then partly undermined his own argument by explaining that this is because Utah County doesn't have to provide municipal services, as many counties do. (The population of unincorporated portions of Utah County is very small.)

Wright promises not to serve more than two terms. Anderson says that if you ignore two terms he served in the last century, before returning to his law practice for a while, he's running for his second term right now.

Wright says the county government should just get out of the way of economic growth; Anderson sees a larger role for the county to play in economic development. (Presumably, this includes the convention center.)

Anderson emphasized his skill in bringing people together. He noted that mayors support him. In this vein, however, he went one step too far: He spoke of Utah Senator Howard Stephenson (the Utah Taxpayers Association's founder) reporting that Utah County is the best-governed county in the best-governed state in the Union. The inference was obvious, that this is partly to the incumbent's credit. Quite apart from the fact that I don't think these evaluations originated with Senator Stephenson, this opened the door wide for Wright to note that Stephenson has endorsed him, not Anderson.

I am rarely fazed by endorsements, but I am outright suspicious of claimed endorsements in Anderson's case. Prior to the county convention, he bombarded county delegates with e-mails naming a lot of people who endorsed him. Repeatedly, he had to send out a retraction later the same day, because he used a name without permission or claimed an endorsement from an organization that either hadn't endorsed him or could not do so.

If I were Joel Wright's campaign manager, I would have wanted to hear a little more substance from him. I thought he spoke more than necessary of principles and generalities, when it might have helped to display his command of details. Admittedly, the format -- lots of candidates, short responses -- doesn't easily lend itself to detail, but even so, there could have been more.

If I were Gary Anderson's campaign manager, I'd be telling him two things. First, if you want to call your opponent a liar, you ought to have something that sounds like a fact or two at your disposal, rather than simply making the thinly-veiled assertion. Second, his campaign comes across as a compilation of tried-and-true Utah County conservative slogans and some related button-pushing. Sometimes that's enough, perhaps. But in a year when people are actually listening, and his opponent's approach is markedly less shallow, and there's more than the usual anti-incumbent scent in the air, slogans and button-pushing probably aren't enough.

For what it's worth, Wright got more applause than Anderson tonight, though I got the impression that the voters there are not finished evaluating him. And though my support of Wright is a bit soft at this point, for reasons I'm not going to describe here, Wright did nothing to push me away tonight, and Anderson did nothing whatsoever to pull me away.

END