Some news about the Utah Gubernatorial race

[Zioneer]

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/53617147-90/cooke-utah-state-mcentee.html.csp

So I don't know if this was posted before, but there's a Democratic gubernatorial candidate who may actually have a chance in Utah. Like the article says, he's retired Army Reserve General Peter Cooke, who's apparently been active in Utah for about 40 years. He hasn't done an "issues" page yet on his "Cookeforgovernor" site, but from all appearances, he seems to be a moderate. And he hits all the right tones (even for Utah) on education, veterans, and bipartisanship. I'm excited to see where his campaign goes.

[Zioneer]

Any chances of a Democratic victory in Utah will be shattered if Romney is the nominee. Even in a big loss, Mitt's coattails will be too strong with Mormons.

Peter Cooke is a Mormon too, but I get your point. Still, he has a much better chance than Coroon back in 2010 did. Or Bob Springmeyer back in 2008. Those loses were just embarrassing. And Herbert's been making himself slightly unpopular since his victory in 2010. The GRAMA closed records bill, the signing of a bunch of GOP "message" bills, and a few other missteps could make this a closer race than most years.

Hopefully the GOP Presidential primaries go crazy enough that Romney isn't seen as desirable even among Mormons (I'm a Mormon too, but I'm not exactly the standard Mormon).

[Zioneer]

Welcome to the forum, PioneerProgress! 

Thanks! I'm actually a Washington native, but moved when I was too young to care about politics, so I consider myself a Utahn. I'm a Mormon (with the pioneering spirit and such), and I consider myself a progressive, hence the username.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

It's quite possible, especially if he chooses a running mate who hasn't said anything bad about Mormonism. He's pretty popular here both for being Mormon and for being one of the architects of the Salt Lake City Olympics. Even with his many missteps and gaffes, his Mormonism and his calm, reasonable style will be quite good for his Utah prospects. Romney might hit 75% this year.

On the other hand, there's a small but growing minority of LDS Paulites in Utah, so I could be wrong. Paul might get a few thousand (Utah's population is only 2.5 million, so that's fairly high) write-in votes in November. Either way, Obama is NOT popular in Utah, so he won't receive many votes.

Hopefully the fact that Peter Cooke is a Mormon and a military vet as well will improve his chances for the gubernatorial race.

As a hilarious side note, Rocky Anderson's Justice Party (which is ultra-liberal) is only registered in Utah and Mississippi.

[Zioneer]

Who are Mormon Paulites, anyway?  Young college student types or fundamentalist polygamous types?*  Or both?

*IIRC there was some town in Utah with a large polygamous Mormon colony, where the mayor was the leader of the colony.  After some sort of dispute with the GOP the mayor and most of the city council all switched to the Libertarian Party.  They later elected a gay LP member mayor.

A little bit of the college student type, but neither, really. Mainly mainstream family types that take the idea of "liberty" very, very seriously. As in, they hate anything that interferes with the free market, especially Obamacare. They read Von Mises and treat Austrian economics as scripture, and in the actual LDS scriptures, they point to tyrants raising taxes as justifying their economic views. I'm neighbors with at least one (that I know of) of those types of families, and go to school with at least three more. They usually focus on the economics part of Ron Paul's message, and less on the social issues (which they brush off with the inevitable "state's rights" argument).

The odd thing is that of the LDS Paulites I've met, the entire family seems to support Paul; no political dissenters in the family. When there's no Paulite in a family besides a somewhat estranged uncle or whatever, they usually have a slightly higher diversity of political opinion.

[Zioneer]

Who are Mormon Paulites, anyway?  Young college student types or fundamentalist polygamous types?*  Or both?

Paul won Colorado City, AZ, if that helps. 

I wasn't aware FLDS voted.

I don't have any idea about the FLDS voting, but the Confederate Nations of Israel (who are no longer completely Mormon or even completely polygamist) did elect one of their members and a Libertarian Party guy to the mayor's seat of Big Water Utah (a town of 400 at it's biggest).

[Zioneer]

There's such a thing as Utah gubernatorial election?

Whoa. I was sure that Utah GOP is simply naming the new Governor each four years.

Haha, that's too true most years. Herbert beat his opponent by over 30% last year, and Huntsman absolutely crushed his 2008 opponent by almost 50 percent, so basically, whoever wins the GOP Primary will usually win the state. Same with the Senate; Hatch beat his 2006 opponent (who's the current favorite for the Dem nominate for Senate this time) by over 30%, Mike Lee beat his 2010 opponent by roughly 29% (with a Constitution Party candidate getting over 5% of the vote). The House of Representatives isn't much better; the Blue Dog Democrat Jim Matheson is the only statewide Democrat with staying power.

Besides Matheson, the only powerful Utah political office that the Dems usually keep is the Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County mayor's seat; we even got ultra-liberal Rocky Anderson as Salt Lake City Mayor for 8 years.

So that's why I'm so excited about Peter Cooke's candidacy. The rest of the Democratic candidates for almost anything in Utah (except the aforementioned mayor's seats) are kind of pathetic, honestly. The guy challenging Hatch (named Pete Ashdown) lost horribly last time, and three out of the four Representative districts we'll have this election have no serious Democratic candidates at all. Of course, I'm counting Jim Matheson as a Republican-in-Democratic clothing because I hate him.

What's interesting though is that the Dems seem to be trying a new tactic in Utah; instead of fielding classically progressive candidates (like Pete Ashdown) who would do well in a more liberal state, they seem to be counting on the Utah GOP being so fanatical about cutting government services that they'd cut or refuse military benefits, and thus allow the Utah Democrats to field pro-military/retired veteran candidates. Peter Cooke of course one, but the Democratic frontrunner for an attempt on Jason Chaffetz's seat is Richard Clark, a Vietnam vet who stresses his military and charitable work in warzones. If Cooke and Clark do fairly well (or even win), this could herald a new era of pro-military Democrats in Utah, which is an interesting change from Rocky Anderson's attempts to impeach Bush.

[Zioneer]

Well this could affect Herbert's chances in the fall. 780,000 people (about one in six Utahns) just had their private medical info hacked, and it looks like the state government didn't provide adequate security for medical records. A lot of people are very angry right now, and with old scandals getting revitalized by this new one, Governor Herbert might be in trouble. I certainly hope that this can let the Democrat have a chance.

[Zioneer]

Are there any polls on this? Is he at least polling above 40?

Utah seems to be lacking in polls; there haven't been any credible gubernatorial polls since early July of 2011, long before Peter Cooke jumped in. There's recently been a internet poll by PoliticIt (an internet politics blog) that shows Cooke in hitting distance of Herbert, but it's inaccurate, since it only measures the amount of "positive" mentions of a candidate on the Internet.

I'm a supporter of Cooke (even donated money), and I prefer to think he's fairly close to Herbert in terms of polling, but until they come out, I just don't know the numbers for any of the candidates.

[Zioneer]

Call me bonkers, but I'm more than a bit eager to see what would happen if a Democrat were to take Utah's reins. After all, it worked for Wyoming and is still working for Montana, so why not give it a shot? Unbending single-party states are boring as balls anyway.

Why do you think I'm so excited for General Cooke (I still can't get over the fact that a retired General is a Democrat) and his chances in the gubernatorial campaign? It's been 25 years (36 if you count Governor Matheson's first election) since a Democrat took office in Utah, and Cooke is probably the best Democratic candidate since Matheson himself.

I want to see a resurgent Democratic party in Utah, and Cooke's the best guy for it. He's awesome; check out his speeches on Youtube.

[Zioneer]

Cooke finally declared his running mate, the son of old Governor Rampton.

I'll quote my thoughts on this from a different forum:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Still, at least the Utah Dems have a united ticket now. I'm going to volunteer for the Cooke campaign, so I'm going to be working to give him a chance of winning Utah.

[Zioneer]

Allow me to admit that I will be following this race eagerly from here on. As Utah's neighbor, I have something of a vested interest in this.

Any idea how the race is trending, Pioneer? Or if Herbert is likely to be booted in the primary, since I know Philpot's stuck his head out of cover again?

It doesn't look good for Cooke right now, he's trending 27 to Herbert's 65, with 8 undecided. Then again, he is literally only barely known by most Utahns, and Herbert's been hit with a bunch of scandals, so I'd say it's at least 5 points off for now. I think he'll end up doing better than the last few Democratic candidates, though. Though internet popularity doesn't translate to votes, he's tied with Herbert in an internet "digital influence" contest.

As for Herbert's rivals, they don't have a chance. He's enormously popular among most Republicans (even Tea Partiers) with 69% preferring him over any of his other challengers (Philpot is actually the closest with 13%). He won't lose the primary. In fact, because of Utah's convention system, he probably won't even face a primary, as 60% of the delegate vote means you simply skip the primary and go to the general election. If Herbert faces a primary and loses, I'll eat my shoe.

[Zioneer]

Jon, you should have never left! Would he have run for a third term?

No, probably not. There were rumors even before he became Ambassador that he was going to run (in fact the rumor was that Obama shipped him off to per-emptively remove him as a serious contender), so I figure that he wouldn't have bothered with a third term.

Oh, and in regards to the actual gubernatorial race, both Herbert and Cooke are going to the general election without a primary; Cooke was completely uncontested and Herbert barely got over the 60% needed to avoid a primary on the second ballot.

[Zioneer]

We Republicans have Utah in the bag this year. You Democrats might as well give up hope for 2012 at least. I like Utah politics.

Oh, I don't think so. Not this year. Not when Utah Democrats are more energized than ever. Not when we're more moderate than ever. Not when there's over a thousand officially registered LDS Dems, with more on the way, and many who are sympathetic to us. Not when we've got a bigger network than ever before. Not when we've got a charismatic, moderate retired General on our side. And especially not when Governor Herbert's had so many scandals. Just you wait, Utah is going to have a Democratic Governor.

[Zioneer]

Just you wait, Utah is going to have a Democratic Governor.

Yes. But WHEN??

Hopefully, after this year's election.

[Zioneer]

We have a new Harry?

Don't quite understand what you mean by that. If you mean a deluded guy who's party has almost no chance of winning in the state he lives in, yeah probably. I just keep up the hope because I honestly believe that the Utah Democrats have the best chance they've had in years in 2012, with better candidates, more funding, more turnout, and more missteps by the Republicans.

Cooke doesn't have an easy chance of winning, but I'm just trying to keep hope alive for myself and anyone who cares.

[Zioneer]

Hopefully, after this year's election.

With 65-27 poll and in Utah - i still heavily doubt... Though i would like to be proven wrong...

Well, it's still over 5 and a half months until the November elections, so I think any polls this far out are not useful. Plus, Cooke is barely known at this point, and it was a newspaper poll on top of all that.

I'm thinking (hoping, really) that it'll end up 51-49 (or at least 49.6 to 49.4 or whatever), with Peter Cooke becoming Governor.

Well, if it helps any, you have the support and enthusiasm of your immediate neighbor. I would donate if I had any money to speak of.

Do you have 5 bucks? Donate that much.

No, seriously, if you've got any Utah relatives or friends, it'd be nice if you could tell them about Cooke. I understand that it's a longshot, but it'd be really nice if I didn't have to hear the old cliche of "Only Republicans win in Utah" again.

[Zioneer]

Well, it's not that I want Matheson to lose, it's that I don't like him and don't care if he wins or loses. If he wins, fine, maybe he'll vote 5% of what I'd like, since he's in an even more conservative district this time. If he loses, fine, it teaches the Utah Democrats that we can't rely on Matheson to be the Utah Democratic standard bearer, and it gives Utah a diverse Congresswomen who, though ideologically opposed to what I like, has done moderate things in the past (Mia Love raised taxes a couple of times as mayor, and has stayed mostly quiet on social issues). It's not like she'll be anything but a Tea Party puppet, but at least she'll probably come to her senses occasionally, with that record.

I still think Peter Cooke is going to win (or have a good chance of doing so) this year though.

[Zioneer]

Just you wait, Utah is going to have a Democratic Governor.

Dude, don't be too overconfident, I said the same thing about my state when Bill White was running in 2010.

Well, I didn't exactly say WHEN Utah would have a Democratic Governor, but like I said, I'm hoping its after this year. More likely that it'll happen in 20 years or so, but hey, Cooke might get lucky.

Well, it's not that I want Matheson to lose, it's that I don't like him and don't care if he wins or loses. If he wins, fine, maybe he'll vote 5% of what I'd like, since he's in an even more conservative district this time. If he loses, fine, it teaches the Utah Democrats that we can't rely on Matheson to be the Utah Democratic standard bearer, and it gives Utah a diverse Congresswomen who, though ideologically opposed to what I like, has done moderate things in the past (Mia Love raised taxes a couple of times as mayor, and has stayed mostly quiet on social issues). It's not like she'll be anything but a Tea Party puppet, but at least she'll probably come to her senses occasionally, with that record.

I still think Peter Cooke is going to win (or have a good chance of doing so) this year though.

If you want liberal democrats representing you, move to California. Utah may be a great state, too, but the best you can have is Jim Matherson. I know it's tough, but moderates and liberals CAN'T win there. I don't know how old are you, but you'd better move to a state which fits you politically speaking if you want your candidate to win someday...

Look, I've explained this before; I get that Utah will never have California-style liberal Democrats. I get that by definition successful Utah Dems will have to be moderate. But that's just the point; moderate, not conservative. Before 2010, Matheson did not have to be as conservative as he voted. But he was, mainly because he's terrible at explaining any pretenses of moderation. Look, Utah voters are more moderate than you'd think; we hated the anti-sex education bill. We hated the school vouchers bill. We liked the Utah Compact. We fought in the 80s against Ronald Reagan's attempt to put the MX missiles in Utah. Many Utahns like the idea of anti-discrimination policies. Utahns really aren't as radically conservative as we're portrayed as (though most Utahns are still very conservative). Heck, about 20-25% more of the new REPUBLICAN delegates this year (to say nothing of the Democrats) have been describing themselves as "moderate".

We like the idea of moderation; Utahns just need a truly moderate (not conservative) Democrat to help the wording of moderate policies seem better than conservative policies. Matheson is bad at doing that, as he's much better at "remember my dad? He was awesome and moderate! Also, vote for me because the only guy is crazy" than actually explaining why he's a good candidate. This lack of good explanation for moderate platforms is something that Utah Democrats have been lacking in for a while, but like I've been saying, Cooke is good at this, so that's why I have faith (heh) in him.

[Zioneer]

What's interesting about Utah politics this year is that Utah Democrats finally realized that you need Mormons to win in Utah; they've gone all-out in appealing to moderate Mormons. All of the major state-wide candidates (Governor, Senate, Congress, even Salt Lake County Mayor) are devout Mormons and talk about how their faith informs their politics, there's over 1250 members of the LDS Democrat (or "LDS Dem") Caucus, and even the openly gay Utah Democratic Chairman Jim Dabakis is very publicly eager to get Mormons into the Democratic party. And I hate to use personal anecdotes, but when I was at the state Democratic Convention as a volunteer, I heard dozens and dozens of people who weren't LDS Dem Caucus members talk about how they were tired of how right-wing the Republicans had become.

Compounding this is stuff like the school vouchers and anti-sex ed bills that are an issue this year, which even Mormons tend to hate. It's not like Mormons will flock to the Democrats, but all these events and appeals could combine to a much closer race than anyone could have thought possible, even with Romney on the top of the national GOP ticket. In fact, with Romney at the top of the ticket, it could cause politically disinterested Mormons to finally figure out what the fuss is with politics, and there's a small chance that a few will go Democratic.

[Zioneer]

The one gubernatorial poll continues to show the Utah gubernatorial race to be incredibly depressing for anyone who isn't a Republican. Just an FYI, if anybody cares. Utah politics make me sad.

[Zioneer]

Cooke shows his education plan off while criticizing the Utah legislature.

And that's all I'll post for now, since there doesn't seem to be much interest in this; this is probably the most exciting thing in several months regarding the gubernatorial race, and even it isn't that interesting.

[Zioneer]

So, even you recognize the election won't be exciting. That means Hebert may win +60%

Not quite; I get the feeling that Cooke might hit 40%, but I'm pretty sure he won't win. It's incredibly frustrating because Cooke is one of the best Democratic candidates we've had in years, but he still isn't doing well against Herbert, or so the singular poll that's been released says. And since that single poll (done before the state conventions even happened) says Herbert will crush Cooke, no pollster wants to try again, even if Cooke is doing better than before. And if Cooke isn't doing better than before, then there's less excitement and thus less of a chance of Cooke winning.

It's a vicious cycle.

[Zioneer]

Also, These guys are yanking my chain with claims of a close gubernatorial race and no polls to back it up.

[Zioneer]

If this race is legitimately close, I will legitimately find the biggest hat in the state and eat it.

If Cooke gets beyond 40%, I will seriously be leaping for joy. Part of the problem is that there's more Democrats than you'd expect, and a sizable (if still small) number of independents who would gladly take a Governor other than Herbert. Only problem is, Cooke hasn't had much media exposure, and that in turn has led to less polling in this state then there should be, which in turn leads to less interest in the race by the media and independents, which leads to less media exposure etc etc etc. Like I said before, it's a vicious cycle, aggravated by the fact that most of the Utah-based media and outside-state pollsters believe that only the Republican side of things is worth covering.