Deseret News, November 1, 2008
Tad Walch

PROVO — No Utah County Democrat has won a seat in the state Legislature since 1994, but a conservative slate of candidates, flush with cash and Republican endorsements, hopes to end the 14-year losing streak on Tuesday.

A bold effort to reshape a weak local Democratic Party began 18 months ago, and the results heading into the election are noteworthy. Utah County Democratic candidates for the Legislature have raised more than $257,000. That's five times more than the party's legislative candidates managed in the last election cycle two years ago.

This year's slate has attracted more than 1,300 donors. Fewer than 100 donated money to Democrats in 2006.

The group of conservative, chiefly LDS, Democrats also has drawn endorsements from notable Republicans such as personal management guru Steven R. Covey, who a year ago hosted a major fundraiser at his northeast Provo home for Mitt Romney, the Pied Piper of Utah Republicans.

For more than a decade at least, most legislative seats in Utah Valley have gone to the winners at the county Republican convention or in a Republican primary.

Voters often haven't even had that much choice. For example, District 62 in northeast Provo has not had a primary race since at least 1960. That means that for nearly half a century, a few dozen delegates at a convention have decided who would represent the entire district in the Legislature.

Election night often has been reduced to a coronation. Two years ago, five Utah County Republicans earned 100 percent of the vote in their legislative districts because they ran unopposed. Two others faced only token opposition from a Constitutionalist and a Libertarian.

When the Democrats have offered opposition in recent years, they've regularly lost in landslides, largely because the electorate hasn't believed they represent the moral positions of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the area's dominant faith.

In May 2007, Brigham Young University professor and national election expert Richard Davis maneuvered liberal local Democrats to the side, angering some, and recruited Republicans in an effort to create a two-party system in the county.

Democrats have asked voters to consider candidates, not parties, on signs and billboards that read, "I think, therefore I will vote the person, not the party."

Local Republicans chafed because those messages and other signs for Utah County Democrats don't include the word Democrat — or even the letter "D." State Republican Party Chairman Stan Lockhart sent an e-mail to Republicans on Friday saying it is election-time trickery for Utah Democrats to present themselves as different from the national Democratic Party.

Utah County Democrats do have a platform different from that of the national party. It champions "limited government," defines marriage as "the union of one man and one woman" and mirrors the LDS position on abortion.

The biggest general difference between the groups is that the Republicans support school vouchers. The Democrats do not.

Those political positions and a slate of long-time conservatives with strong ties to the community — a former BYU vice president, a former Alpine School District superintendent, the wife of the former dean of the BYU business school — have convinced a number of Republicans to switch parties or at least endorse Democrats. "I'm a lifelong Utah County Republican," Covey said in a message recorded for the Democrat running in his district, "but this year I'm voting for Claralyn Hill, the Democrat for the Utah House of Representatives. In Utah County, we need to look beyond partisan labels and elect the best person for the job. That person is Claralyn Hill. Claralyn Hill is conservative, experienced, highly ethical and an effective coalition builder."

Hill is trying to unseat Rep. Chris Herrod, R-Provo, who has never won an election. Herrod was appointed to the District 62 seat two years ago by the chair of the Utah Republican Party at the time, Enid Greene, despite finishing second in a special election to replace Alexander.

Herrod is endorsed by Gov. Jon Huntsman, Senate President John Valentine and House Speaker Greg Curtis.
Other Republican endorsements won by Utah County Democrats include that of former state Rep. Jordan Tanner, R-Provo, who gave a blanket endorsement to the entire Democratic slate.

Many of the Democrats are on unusually equal financial ground with their Republican counterparts.

Hill, an attorney and the wife of former BYU business school dean Ned Hill, has raised nearly $33,000. Herrod had $36,000.

Former Alpine School District superintendent Steve Baugh, who works for BYU, has raised nearly $45,000 in his race to unseat District 58 Rep. Stephen Sandstrom, R-Orem, who had $29,063.

Former BYU vice president and Weber State University president Paul Thompson raised $26,800 to the $27,850 donated to Rep. Lorie Fowlke, R-Orem, in a District 59 battle that has dotted State Street with billboards.

The cash, the conservatism and the cachet of Covey, Tanner and others has raised the stakes in the county in a way that may have contributed to some of the clashes between Republicans and Democrats.

In one case, Davis said state Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, threatened to sue Davis for slander after a panel discussion in which Davis called for ethics reform to deal with junkets. Davis mentioned a junket Bramble took to Italy with lobbyist friends but did not mention Bramble's name.

Davis believes Bramble was trying to intimidate him and called the incident an example of Republican arrogance in Utah County.

Bramble faces a challenge from RaDene Hatfield, president of the Provo Council PTA. Bramble and Hatfield had a rough encounter on a Provo street while campaigning.

Bramble also called police to a Provo home before a debate with Hatfield because of a confrontation he and family members had with a man who wanted to videotape the event.

Hatfield has raised a respectable $35,131, but that is dwarfed by the $94,000 spent by Bramble in this election cycle. And Bramble still had more than $86,000 on hand at the end of the last reporting period while Hatfield had $195.