"Feedback" radio host Scott Winter talked with KUED Senior Producer Ken Verdoia about the VoteUtah project.

The following is a transcript from the June 18 interview, which broadcast on KALL 910 AM, AM 570 KNRS,Oldies 94.1, 101.9 KKAT, Rock 99, KZHT 9409, and AM 700 KWLW.

Announcer: This is the Spectrum Public Affairs Network. This is "Feedback" with Scott Winter on the Spectrum Public Affairs Network.

Scott: Election season 2000 is upon us, we're going to vote in the politicians who will run our country for the next couple of years, and what do you really know about them? And how is television, or radio for that matter, or the Internet helping you find out the information you need to know, in order to vote the best people into office? Well one station, KUED Channel 7, is encouraging Utahns to go beyond the sound bites and rely on the sound election analysis that this state's public television station has to offer. And that's our subject on Feedback this morning. Good morning. I'm Scott Winter and this is Feedback on the Spectrum Public Affairs Network. Today we have a guest who has appeared on my show more than anybody else in the history of me doing Feedback, Ken Verdoia, who is the senior producer for Election 2000 - VoteUtah for KUED-Channel 7.

Ken: What an extraordinary honor to have that designation.

Scott: Well, you keep doing all these really fascinating and interesting documentaries, and I just have to have you on to talk about them, and now you're involved in Election 2000 for KUED.

Ken: We used to say, Scott, that our mission in public television is to try to find the niche between all the good works that were being done out there, between newspaper, and television. Everything that they did in their setting of a commercial broadcast or of commercial print, we would try to negotiate narrowly between their great efforts. And, unfortunately now, when it comes to election coverage and political broadcasting, there's this huge chasm of emptiness of what's going on in terms of media coverage of politics and the election. And so, we're driving the bus sideways through this enormous hole.

Scott: Is that what really brought public television into the forefront? I remember back - I don't remember, but I remember hearing about how when television first started, and the news programs that were on, first they were only like fifteen-minute news broadcasts, but...

Ken: Very short.

Scott: You had quality people doing that. Edward R. Murrow, you had Huntley/Brinkley, Walter Cronkite of course giving you in depth analysis of what was going on, they expanded their newscasts, and CBS especially was known for their great coverage of news. And then it changed when they found out that they could start making money from it. It used to be just a public service that the TV stations would do. Then once the money aspect got into it, it became a revenue generator; and the focus of network television news changed didn't it?

Ken: In fact let me give you a hard statistic that kind of draws that into sharper focus. In 1960, during the era of Huntley/Brinkley, and those great moments of American television, the average length of a sound byte, something we're all familiar with now, or the interview segment used in a television news story was 60 seconds...

Scott: Oh good heavens. Ken: So, if you had Richard Nixon speaking in the 1960 presidential campaign, you would hear Richard Nixon on the nightly news speaking for, on average, 60 seconds. By 1988, that figure was down to 9.2 seconds.

Scott: It's even shorter in radio.

Ken: By 1998, it is now down to 8 seconds. It continues to fall like a stone. Does that mean our politicians have less to say? Does that mean the decision is less significant than it was 40 years ago? Obviously not. It means the collective broadcast journalism media in this nation have changed. Shorter attention spans. . .faster paced stories. They say they're doing it because of fleeting public interest. Conversely, what they're doing is driving the public away from the traditional news sources as legitimate sources of information for people to make informed decisions.

Scott: Would you say that has had a reverse effect as well? Has that effected the way politicians and politics is run in this country?

Ken: Absolutely.

Scott: Because if I'm running for president, and I know only nine seconds of my hour long speech is going to be on TV, I'm going to make sure that I've got at least a nine second cut here, a nine second cut there, and one line here. I'm going to create my own sound byte just to make sure that I end up on the evening news.

Ken: With successful and not-so-successful consequences. One need only go back a few years to 'Read my lips, no new taxes.' That sound bite haunted President George Bush. Probably cost him reelection because it was thrown back at him time and time again. So trying to boil down a presidential candidacy, or a candidacy for governor, to one little eight second blurb that sums up everything you're supposed to represent is ludicrous in the extreme, but it's being used more and more.

Scott: And then you get someone like President Reagan, who actually used sound bites that were already on TV. Where's the beef? I paid for this microphone.

Ken: And the extraordinary imagery of President Reagan and the successful use of the media to restore this strong awareness in American voters that the nation could be nobler. The nation could be more virtuous; we could be, as he said,' the shining city on the hill.' The ability to instill in the American voter the understanding of that imagery, and a desire to walk the path to attain that higher calling, connected in an extraordinary fashion with the American public. And led dramatically to President Reagan's initial victory over Jimmy Carter, and then of course his landslide reelection victory.

Scott: But Ken, there is a reason that they call it the MTV Generation. MTV watchers, and people of that generation, do have a shorter attention span. Whether they've been made to have that attention span by the media; it is a fact that they do have that and so the media has to play into that. There's a lot of polls and a lot of ratings, and I know you get this a lot working for KUED-Channel 7, but people say when they're asked, 'well, I only watch public television or I watch the Nature Channel, I'm not really into network TV.' But, the ratings don't bear that out. People like to say that they watch in-depth programming, but they don't always do that.

Ken: And then one of the great lies in America is the endless stream of people who come up to me and tell me that they never miss The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, which used to be the McNeil/ Lehrer News Hour. Now we know, that on any given night one percent of the American population is watching that program. But in fact, fifty percent of the American population has told me they watch it regularly. You're right, it's the level of being informed to which we would hope to aspire. It's like saying; 'I've read the collective works of William Shakespeare.' You think that you are ennobling yourself by identifying with those programs. Well, we appreciate that identification...

Scott: And it's good for you. It's supposed to be good for you, which is why I think a lot of people like to identify with it.

Ken: But in reality, the American public, and a substantial portion of the American public, is not so shallow, not so callow, not so mercurial in their outlook and their opinions and their tastes, that they want to surf from channel to channel every thirty seconds. We have examples in public television. The highest rated locally produced program in a local market such as Salt Lake City, was a documentary that explored the history of Utah. People sat down and invested hours of their time to watch this program. And it was a documentary. It wasn't sharply edited. It wasn't razz-ma-tazz, it wasn't drama, and the program featured neither sex nor car crashes. People will invest the time, if the content of a program is there to engage them, if they feel they're not being pandered to, but rather there is a reason for them to invest their time.

Scott: And you have a history of doing this on KUED. I've asked you this before, but I want you to talk about this specifically with politics which can be a dry, boring subject about issues we've all heard a lot about before, and we already know practically everybody else's opinion on it. How do you make something like that not only informative but entertaining enough to capture people's attention to sit around and learn what they need to learn?

Ken: Well, you know, two of the most despised groups to bring together in one broadcast setting, would be politicians and journalists. Right?

Scott: Who do you throw the egg at first?

Ken: Right off the bat, we've got problems there. And so, I think you recognize that. You say, 'well, jeez, who's going to be asking these candidates questions? That journalist, that person sitting there doesn't represent my interest, doesn't live on my block, doesn't know me.'

Scott: Well, he's pictured as being in the same smoke-filled back room as the politician is.

Ken: Now this is a person - generally most political journalists make their living by a working relationship with the people they're covering.

Scott: And it's perceived that because of that, they are compromised by it, so why trust them any more than you trust the politicians?

Ken: And the is the layered issue of is there an inherent liberal bias in the media? Is the media tainted by that? The way we approach it is to say, 'let's get the media - in my case, let's get ME out of the picture.' Let's bring these people that are candidates for public office, sit them down, and then bring together an audience of Utahns to ask the questions. What a novel concept. The people get to ask questions of a candidate. Why? Because these are the people who are going to do the voting. These are the people that have the voices of their neighbors. These are the people that are not swayed by the polarities of issues that are driven in this state where ten percent on the right and ten percent on the left shape the dialogue over issues in the media. There is a disturbing trend in too much of the Utah media to base much of its political coverage by chasing the most extreme viewpoints. Yet, 80 percent of the Utah population or at least 60 percent, is somewhere between those political spectrums and is not touched by dialogues that are driven by extremists.

Scott: But politics is a complicated issue, and running the government is a complicated procedure. Do I, as your average Joe citizen, really know the right questions to ask a politician to find out what he believes in?

Ken: You have the right to say as I go to bed each night 'tomorrow I'm going to wake up concerned that I'm going to be able to feed my children.' Or that 'I'm concerned that my kid is going to get a good basic education when they walk down the street to go to their elementary school.' You have a right to say, 'I know a lot of headlines have been written about this tobacco settlement, where is that money going to go?' You have a right to say, 'I'm concerned about guns,' either keeping them, or keeping them out. You have the right to weigh those issues in your life. And I believe you have a right to raise those issues before those people who would claim to represent you in the halls of government. You've got the right to do that. I don't have the right, as a journalist, to countermand your authority and say, 'these are my issues that are more important because I say so.'

Scott: And, are you saying that public television then is really the only venue that you can do this in? Because I can't just call up Governor Mike Leavitt and ask him what his position on gun control is. I can't really call Representative Merrill Cook and say, 'do you believe that this tax should be put on this particular item? Or that it should be taken off of this?' One, they're not going to have the time for me. Two, they're probably going to say, 'well you know, that's something that we need to study and have a committee on.' And why aren't the national affiliated television stations doing something like this? Why did you guys have to jump into the breech at KUED and say, 'we're the ones who are going to set up this forum.'?

Ken: Well let me clarify. We are not the only people that believe that the citizens' voice should be represented in these exchanges. And certainly we've seen in some rarified national settings, such as Nightline, they have done some excellent town meetings with public officials where citizens stand up and ask the questions. So, there are those examples out there.

Scott: And that's one of those 'good for you shows' that people actually do watch when they say they watch it.

Ken: Well, absolutely.

Scott: And then they turn over to Calista Flockhart on David Letterman.

Ken: But one of the great issues of our time is that the broadcast medium - especially television, was designed to be a marketplace of ideas. This great public forum where people sitting in the comfort of their own homes would be able to engage in these programs that would challenge our public officials. Programs that would require officials and candidates to speak out on significant issues. That has all but evaporated, especially on a local level. It's just considered not fast paced enough, not sexy enough for television stations to do that anymore. But, it's still vital for the citizenry to hear these people direct and unvarnished. Not in an eight second sound byte, not in a thirty second political ad, but to answer questions and speak to specifics.

Scott: Election 2000, we're talking with KUED-Channel 7 senior producer of Election 2000 - VoteUtah, Ken Verdoia. I'm Scott Winter, and this is Feedback on the Spectrum Public Affairs Network. A while ago, when we had the mayoral elections here in Salt Lake City, I had the two candidates on. They didn't want to be on together, so I had a half-an-hour for one and a half-an-hour for another.

Ken: Interesting.

Scott: And I put the two on together. Part of it had to do with their schedules, but Rocky Anderson and.

Ken: Stuart Reed.

Scott: Stuart Reed.

Ken: How quickly we forget the second place finisher.

Scott: Both very interesting men. I enjoyed my time with them both greatly. But one of the things that they both expressed to me after the show, was the fact that they were able to talk. Since I didn't really feel that I knew enough about politics to really get in there and just beat them up on issues and stuff, I would just ask them, 'what do you believe about this? What do you believe about that? What do you believe about this?' And just bring up topics, not even say, 'do you think it should be done this way?' Just ask, 'what is your opinion on this?' and let them talk for five minutes on the topic. They were happy to be able to just let themselves go. That they didn't have to worry about using the right phrase for that sound byte that we were talking about. That doesn't happen a lot in the forums that these candidates can get on. Is that kind of forum what you're going to be doing with the debates on Channel 7?

Ken: That's what we're looking for. We're looking for the citizens to stand up and say, 'an issue that care I care deeply about is taxation. What are you going to do about taxation? What do you stand for, and how will you make it come to pass?' The subject then, is taxes. When you listen to a debate, try to cut through the mumbo-jumbo of a candidate, his or her canned sound bite...

Scott: And they think it doesn't pop out on you, but it really does. You can pick it off fast.

Ken: It really does. And listen for what is that candidate for, not what they're against. Listen for what they are in favor of. As they enumerate what they believe in, what they're in favor of, can they give voice to it in practical terms? I believe we should reduce taxes - tell me how. Tell me what 20 percent you're going to cut. I want to know this. And listen for those specifics. Make sure it comes out - if it doesn't come out of them, they may just be wrapping themselves in the American Flag trying to make you feel good.

Scott: And you know as well as I do that a lot of these candidates don't want to be trapped into that, or they're going to fall into the George Bush syndrome - no new taxes, I promise you that. And then four years later, they're going to get heck for it because they have made a promise that they can't keep. So, in a lot of these answers in these debates or these town meetings, they really don't come out and actually say, 'I am for this' because they're going to get caught later on if they're not able to follow through.

Ken: They are fearful. They are very, very fearful, that's an excellent point.

Scott: Do we put too much pressure on them to make a promise, take an issue, take a stand, and then if for one second you waver on that, we're just going to jump all over you.

Ken: Oh my gosh Scott, are you saying that we're expecting them to be adults?

Scott: I think that we're expecting to be perfect.

Ken: Perhaps. But what we really are expecting is if they make a promise, have the integrity of honoring the promise. If they do not honor the promise.

Scott: They better have a pretty darn good excuse.

Ken: . . .or you will suffer the consequences with me, of not honoring your promise to me. We have got to look at someone like Norman Bangerter. In 1987, Norm Bangerter governor of Utah was considered dead. Politically dead. He had gone in as a fiscal conservative, but because of some dreadful reverses in the state's economy, he had to push a tax increase through the legislature. Boy, his public opinion ratings fell right into the basement. Everybody said, 'there's no way he's going to get reelected.' There were thoughts of dumping him within the Republican Party, and yet, Norman Bangerter stood up and said, 'this is what I did. This is why I did it. This is what would have happened had I not taken that step. I'm not apologizing, I am trying to explain, this is what was necessary.' He staged the most dramatic comeback in Utah's political history, because he stood by his guns, and he made the right choice, he made the right decision.

Scott: And now we've got a highway named after him we like him so much. You know, I've heard similar things about Richard Nixon. If he'd had just come out and admitted, 'yes I bugged these things. Yes, I approved the break-in after the fact. I'm sorry, it won't happen again. I made a mistake', people may have forgiven him. And he could have still been president if he'd just come out and been honest. And I'm wondering why more politicians haven't picked up on something like that.

Ken: Honesty is in fact the best policy, but you know, we don't reward honesty in the stalking of political offices by individuals.

Scott: Stalking?

Ken: The career of Bill Clinton, for example. From a very young age he was of a singular purpose and mind. Here is a person who gives the appearance of crafting each of life's steps to serve a terribly focused career objective of getting elected to public office. A person who is plotting each step carefully. If I do this, I can advance to here. If I take this step, if I become Attorney General of Arkansas, I've then got a shot at Governor. If I get a shot at Governor, who knows? I personally am uncomfortable with a person who approaches public office in such a manner. You know, personally as just one voter, I don't like that in an individual. I like to think of a person who perceives a need, does their very best, and then gets the heck out of office. Much like Scott Matheson did as governor in the 1970's

Scott: That brings me to this question that I had that I thought of at the beginning of the show. How many politicians in your experience, have run into the trap of not saying what you think they should say? I think politicians should come out and say, 'I believe in this, I believe in this, I believe in this. If you believe in that, vote for me.' A lot of politicians now days, I think, say 'what do you believe about this? What do you believe about this? What do you believe about that? And if a majority of you believe in that, that's what I believe, now vote for me.'

Ken: I think that's a pretty broad based but accurate characterization. 'What do you want to hear? Well, I'm here to tell you that.' And, the less scrupulous political figures will change their tune in different settings, and that's completely inappropriate. I want to know what a person stands for. If someone stands up and honestly says, 'This is what I stand for.' I won't break with that person over one position that I don't agree with him or her on. I will respect them for their integrity even if I disagree with them. And, we don't get a lot of that. We just have the sense that people are feeding us a line. And that's why many people are disaffected with the political process. We've got to hear more of them thinking out loud about what they truly stand for, rather than a wanton pursuit of public adulation through political office.

Scott: Now you say you would not discount a politician or somebody running for office just because you disagreed with them on one issue. But, in the era of special interest groups that we're in now...

Ken: I don't agree with my wife on every issue for goodness sakes. And I'm grateful that she has not voted me out of office because of disagreement over the occasional issue.

Scott: But, we expect politicians to believe in us and to agree with us in everything. With the special-interest groups out there, they will snatch on to one politician who disagrees with them on one topic and they will just beat him into the ground until they have gotten him out of there so they can get the one guy who does believe in that one topic into office. If you disagree with me on gun control, I'm going to get you out of office, no matter how many other ways I agree with you.

Ken: You see, that's the definition of special-interest politics right there. In a nutshell.

Scott: Well, they seem to be running things now don't they?

Ken: In the absence of an active body politic, the small, active groups define the public dialogue.

Scott: So, we're letting that happen you're saying?

Ken: Oh yeah, absolutely. Those people who have those sharply held viewpoints at opposite ends of the spectrum, are the ones that are shaping the dialogue. They are also the ones that are politically active. You have a couple of groups in Utah, the Eagle Forum is one, where they have a small group of dedicated individuals committed to a rather small agenda of what they believe is important for government to represent. They are activists. I don't knock them. I may not agree with them on the issues, but I don't knock them because those people are active in the political process.

Scott: Whether you agree with their politics or not, they're getting off their butt and they're doing something about what they believe.

Ken: And it all starts on the neighborhood level. They don't begin banging on the door of the governor, or the halls of Congress. They're organized in the neighborhoods. They think of it on a state legislative basis. They think of it in Utah State House of Representatives or Utah State Senate or County Commission votes.

Scott: But you can see how this would affect the average person who's not involved in a special-interest group or not involved in these political forums, sitting there saying, 'well then what does my opinion matter if all these groups have so much power because they've done it.' I would have to form my own group on a single issue. Or a single couple of issues, or a philosophy in order to get that same amount of power to have some kind of change.

Ken: No you don't.

Scott: Just one vote is not going to have an effect when you're going up against a group like that.

Ken: One vote makes a difference. Look at a couple of the great lessons of history. Let me give you an example. 1996 out in Tooele County, there's a race for the Utah State Senate. This campaign is hard fought. Republicans want that State Senate seat. It's been held by a Democrat. It's a hard fought campaign between two individuals. It was a dead heat on election night. It was recounted, the ballots were recounted two times. Final separation, forty votes between the two candidates. Forty votes, roughly the equivalent of adult votes found on one square city block. Don't tell me one vote can't make a difference because it can. One vote put Adolph Hitler in charge of the Nazi Party in 1923. One vote seated Ruthorford B. Hayes as President of the United States back in the 1870's. One vote kept Andrew Johnson from being impeached. One vote in our nation's history is the most precious gift we have.

Scott: Election 2000. We're talking with Ken Verdoia, Senior Producer of KUED-Channel 7's VoteUtah campaign. I'm Scott Winter, and this is Feedback on the Spectrum Public Affairs Network. You mentioned Tooele and the run for the State Senate. That's not the United States Senate that's the State Senate. That's the senate right here in Utah.

Ken: Yes, Utah State Senate that's right.

Scott: Do you believe, as a lot of people do, that the local - local - local elections are a lot more popular than the national ones? It's more important who we vote as State Senator, State Representative, Attorney General, even up to Governor, more important than it is who we vote for the United States Senate, the United States Congress, or the President?

Ken: Well, you know, and I'm not saying, 'please don't vote for federal office.'

Scott: But what's really going to affect our lives more?

Ken: You want to know what votes count the most? It's those that are cast for government that is closest to you. And that includes your local city council, your county commissioners, your county attorney, your state representative, your state senator. Those are the people that are exercising extraordinary influence on the issues that will affect you in your neighborhood. Right on your block. Those are the people that are really going to be affecting your life on a daily basis. Far more on an individual basis than the President of the United States, or even a United States Senator.

Scott: Especially in a state like Utah that has a comparatively low population.

Ken: But those local elections are based on either city boundaries or balanced populations. If you sit out those elections, if you say, 'well, my one vote doesn't make a difference out of the 80 million votes that will be cast for President of the United States, ' you've probably got a pretty good point. Your one vote won't swing a presidential election. But, your one vote could swing a city council election. It certainly could swing a state senate election, or a state legislative election and you would be making an extraordinary difference.

Scott: You've got to admit though that these smaller elections and the more local offices that you're talking about are the ones that people usually ignore. It's the higher political offices, the president, the governor, the senators, and the congressmen that people even remember. I don't know when was the last time I voted for a city councilman or a state assessor.

Ken: And as I say, those are terribly important decisions. These are the men and women that come around and knock on your door and say, 'Hi, I'm Bob Jones, I'm one of your neighbors, and I'm running for city council, and I'd really appreciate it if you could support me.' For example, there's an extraordinary opportunity going on right now in Salt Lake County. They are revamping the form of government, and they are going to an elected county council. Council members that will be elected by district, with several at large. This is a revolution in local government, and it's going to be one of the most important decisions that neighborhoods make and it's completely ignored.

Scott: When we get this small in local politics, not really small, but when we get this intimate and personal in local politics, how important do the political parties become? I've always been surprised at just how many Democratic office holders there are for the state of Utah considering what a supposedly conservative, Republican, state Utah is supposed to be.

Ken: And I think I've told you this story before that this is not the first time that Utah's been considered a one party state. Back when Utah was admitted to the Union in 1896, one of the major stumbling blocks to admission was the fact that the partisan powerbrokers back east, were concerned that Utah was such a one party state. Back then it was the Democratic Party.

Scott: Oh really?

Ken: In fact, it was such a lopsided majority in favor of the Democrats, that the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints called upon a church Apostle, John Henry Smith, to ride the circuit of Utah and convince Latter Day Saints that it was possible to be a good Mormon and a good Republican. Because that essential balance between political parties was viewed as in the best interest of Utah. And the Republican Party virtually did not exist in Utah back at the turn of the last century.

Scott: Well, you can also say what we would call the Democratic Party back then, would probably be called the Republican Party now.

Ken: It's hard to maintain clear party images over the passing years. But the Republican Party came into being, you've got to remember, in the 1850's with a platform that was dedicated to the elimination of what they called, 'the twin relics of barbarism. Slavery and polygamy.' which they equated as the same and put on the same plank of the Republican Party's first platform.

Scott: And wasn't the first, the official Republican Party presidential candidate, Abraham Lincoln?

Ken: John C. Fremont.

Scott: Oh really?

Ken: He lost to James Buchanan.

Scott: Oh poor guy. But the first actual elected president...

Ken: Was Abraham Lincoln.

Scott: Abraham Lincoln, all right. So, do you think the party has much to do with it on the local level?

Ken: You know, it does to a sense when people vote a straight party ticket. But we have to remember that much of local government is non-partisan and parties have nothing to do with judicial retention elections, which are unfortunately, frequently overlooked by Utah voters.

Scott: Ken, I've known you for quite a while and one of the things that we always seem to talk about before, after, and during the shows, is that you think; and you have this impression, and I agree with it too, that people are a lot smarter than most people give them credit for.

Ken: And you know how you find that out? You talk to them, and you listen.

Scott: Your average human being on this planet, who's not involved in politics, not involved in all this stuff, is a lot smarter than we give them credit for.

Ken: Absolutely.

Scott: What then, influences people when they're voting for somebody in office? If it's not what we think it is, what is it really? I mean, is it really all the flash and non-substance that we see in the fifteen or thirty second television ads, or the thirty or sixty second radio ads? Is it the MTV kind of quick-cuts and all of that stuff? Is it the fact that, you know, we like the fact that Bill Clinton wears boxers instead of briefs? Is that what really influences us a s a voter? Or that Richard Nixon was sweating during the debate, and John Kennedy looked handsome? Or do we really want and crave more substance and vote based on that?

Ken: The bottom line that has been established and understood for many, many generations, was instilled in me when I was in graduate school in Political Science. And they said, "It's simple. People, when they go into a voting booth are voting for either guns, or butter." And that's a simple thing. 'Are we are at war? Are we at risk? Do we perceive ourselves as weak? Are we under the gun? Are we in conflict? Is the war good? Is the war bad?' Or they vote for butter. 'If we're not at war, if national security is not an issue, how are we doing in our economy? How am I doing? Am I employed? Am I making money? Is my family eating well? You know, how is the economy going? Is my business doing okay?' Those are the two motivating issues time and time again. And they are the pivotal issues in every election on a federal level.

Scott: If we're feeling safer and we're feeling more economically secure, we're more likely to keep the incumbent in office.

Ken: We will retain the incumbent.

Scott: And if just the opposite is true, kick the bums out and try somebody new?

Ken: Here's an example. '64, Lyndon Johnson is carrying the emotional mantle forward of John Kennedy, the war in Vietnam had not heated up yet, the economy is still percolating along, people vote for Lyndon Johnson in a landslide. Three years later...

Scott: He doesn't even bother.

Ken: He drops out. And, Hubert Humphrey picks up the mantle, steps forward and seeks to carry forward the Democratic banner, the public said, 'we don't like this war very much. We want someone who's going to get us out of the war', as he said, ' peace with honor, light at the end of the tunnel.' Richard Nixon. So that was a guns decision. With Jimmy Carter, it was the issue of running against Ronald Reagan, also in affect a guns issue. The pride and security and national standing of the United States of America. Are we weak? Can we be strong?

Scott: And we felt really weak with the Iran hostage situation.

Ken: Absolutely. At the time the Soviet Union was offered as an evil empire towering over us. Maybe they were more than our equal, and Ronald Reagan said, 'we can be strong.' There was a guns decision. But with George Bush and Bill Clinton, in the election in 1992, it was not the fact that we had won the Persian Gulf War...

Scott: Which most people thought was going to be a clean swipe for Bush.

Ken: The people did not care.

Scott: Forgot fast.

Ken: Threw the issue out in its entirety. It was, and a sign in Bill Clinton's war room said, ' it's the economy, stupid.' People weren't feeling good about their paychecks, and Bill Clinton made that the focus of his successful unseating of an incumbent President.

Scott: How do we feel in Utah right now? What's your impression? Because when I watch the TV news, or when I listen to the radio news, or when I read the newspaper, it seems to change every week. The economy's doing good, the economy's doing bad. Voter confidence is high, confidence is bad. We're loving the way we're - you know, the cost of living is down, the cost of living is up. It changes all the time. Can you really get a feel of how we're feeling in Utah?

Ken: We are now coming down from a sustained economic high, which was pretty extraordinary. Securing the Olympics, having an emergent software and computer driven industry, we were on a tear there in the '90's for a period of time that was unparalleled in the United States. We had a lot to feel good about, so we undertook some ambitious goals. First of all, not only did we seduce the Olympic committee, but we had to go about staging the games.

Scott: Seduce is a very nice way of putting that Ken.

Ken: So we swing from the euphoria of landing the Games to the very hard work of staging the Olympics, that's big work. Then we say, 'Okay, we're going to reconstruct our highway system' That's big work. That's nasty, expensive work. The devil is in the details of carrying out the ambitious dreams.

Scott: And then, a lot of the businesses we thought were coming bugged out. Like the computer industry.

Ken: And we've slumped from that extraordinary economic growth scale that we had earlier. But lets not cry crocodile tears for Utah. Unemployment is still down. Job opportunities are still there. The bottom line is, we're not as high as we were five years ago, but this state is very well run from a fiscal standpoint. Financially, this state is doing very, very well. It is achieving, it is well managed. And I think you will not find a spirit of "throw the rascals out". Unless the personal character of a candidate becomes an overriding consideration. Because in Utah, if it's a question of personal character, we will throw the rascal out.

Scott: And you think that overrides the feeling of, 'how am I doing in my personal life?'

Ken: Yeah, especially in Utah. Utah votes with a strong moral compass, and that can be a powerful determining factor. Especially when it comes to the congressional races.

Scott: How do you keep your personal opinions from getting in the way of moderating debates?

Ken: Oh, it's easy.

Scott: Or even dealing with all of this election coverage that you guys are doing.

Ken: It's easy because I realize how dull-witted I am. And I am always impressed with the views and opinions that my neighbors and the "person on the street" will express when they are given a chance. So, it's very easy for me to step back and say, 'what do you think?'

Scott: But really, at the end of these debates, we should have no idea what your opinion is should we?

Ken: Absolutely not.

Scott: Because that's not really important.

Ken: Absolutely not. I think the best moderator is the one during the course of the program who stays close to invisible. I believe that serves the public's interest much more than a journalist grandstanding in the middle of a debate.

Scott: Your debate format seems to make it difficult for candidates to hide; let me use the phrase, the 'slick wiliness' of some candidates? The ones who are all image and no substance?

Ken: Absolutely. That just shoots out at you over the course of these exchanges. That's why I think this format; with the studio audience setting the agenda, is the best way to go. And, if you can't join us for the broadcast debates, join us on the Internet because everything we have on the air and much more. It is going to be part of our website at www.voteutah.org

Scott: Now I went to this website. This is one of the most comprehensive, and user friendly websites that I've seen in a long time.

Ken: Oh that's kind of you to say. A lot of good people worked on it.

Scott: But the nice part is too, there's no pop-up ads trying to sell me a house mortgage, or you know, get me a deal on a VCR or anything like that, because this is KUED public television who's doing this website.

Ken: And let me also say that it's not just KUED, it's our sister public radio station KUER, and two great non-partisan community based groups, The League of Women Voters of Utah, and Utah Common Cause. They are all coming together, and I might also add, the Utah Education Network which is dedicated to non-partisan information and instructional tools for schools in our public school system.

Scott: And one of the things I loved about it, is you have a section there called The Learning Booth.

Ken: Right.

Scott: And this is nice because a lot of people may think, myself included, I thought I knew how the elections worked. Who we were voting for, why we were voting for them, how politics and government works in this country.

Ken: Right.

Scott: And I was looking through this going, 'man, I was mistaken about that.' It may seem like simple stuff, and a lot of people may be embarrassed that they don't know the real easy, simple stuff about politics, but you can go to this website and find it out. There's no embarrassment involved. You can just learn it.

Ken: And plus link to some great activities in other sites. But you know what's interesting, is we developed that basically for public schools kindergarten through grade 12. And we find that adults that are hitting on this site are drawn to that to refresh their understanding. Because they're having a hard time answering their kid's questions about 'Why do we have a governor and a legislature?' And it's all there. It's going to be a great learning tool for teachers in the fall as well. And what we hope this will be like a gentle, interesting civics lesson at your own convenience, to remind yourself of just how connected our government is.

Scott: How updated is this going to be? Is this just something you just did once and you're going to leave for five months?

Ken: It's actually being revisited every day for content. We're constantly adding new material. KUER and its daily political coverage will be streamed onto the site. All of our debate telecasts will be turned into transcripts that will be available on the site for people to access later on in the campaign to hold candidates accountable for what they've said on the air, and we will keep updating this every day throughout the election in November.

Scott: That's www.voteutah.org. And how does this work in with community partnerships? You mentioned a few of them; the League of Women Voters is I think probably the most famous one.

Ken: They advocate citizens to get involved. We call it the League of Women Voters; it's kind of an outgrowth; if you will, from almost the days of the campaign for suffrage. But it's women saying, 'look, we have ownership in our communities. Here is the way we shape our communities, our state, and our nation. Be involved, be informed.' So, they have an extraordinary track record. Our second major partner is Utah Common Cause. Again, a citizen's advocacy group that is encouraging better dialogues in political campaigns, less reliance upon TV advertising and commercial spots, and better campaign finance disclosures.

Scott: How important, Ken, are minority voters in the state of Utah? Do they yet have the kind of influence in other states?

Ken: No, they do not. And this is one of the great tragedies of Utah in that we are so exclusively focused on the homogeneity of our state. We place the focus there because of the great imperative to serve the interests of majorities. So how do we politically define ourselves. . . White, Anglo-Saxon, Christian, and generally to the "right" of the nation. Since political campaigns focus their messages on winning, the messages tend to be aimed exclusively at the largest demographic blocks. So the entire political process becomes institutionally inclined to overlook diversity. People of different ethnic backgrounds, different religious traditions, different cultural traditions. Once upon a time, these different traditions were considered the political realm of the Democratic Party. But the Democratic Party has not been able to organize these very different traditions into a cohesive political action unit. And, frankly, the Democratic Party of Utah is more committed to a centrist or even rightward realignment to appeal to that majority of voters that we were just talking about. And what you find with the Latino voter, what you find with the African-American voter, is that they have great suspicion of whether either party is listening to them in Utah.

Scott: And do you think that's a cause just of the numbers? That there may not be as many of them?

Ken: It could be. If you go to San Diego, if you go to Los Angeles in congressional districts there, the Latino vote is so well developed. It's so significant in numbers. First of all, Latino candidates that are running. African-American candidates are running for office. And these candidates are winning those offices, representing their people in the districts. But to overlook the so-called Hispanic vote, to overlook an ethnic vote is political suicide in more diverse political settings. In Utah, unfortunately, the numbers are considered so small, that candidates do not invest the time in speaking to those voters.

Scott: Is it hard to vote? If I've never voted before do I have to go through a long registration process, get a background check, have them go into my credit history, find out where I live, stop by my house, check my dog, get my Social Security Number?

Ken: It's a piece of cake.

Scott: I mean if I've never been involved in the voting process, how do I make sure that I can start getting involved?

Ken: Well, the first thing you do, is if you're connected to the Internet, and you can either do this at a home computer if you have it, or go to a local library. Visit us on the website - www.voteutah.org. On that website, we have voter information. Click on that, we'll tell you how to register. We'll tell you where to register. We'll tell you what steps are involved, we'll tell you what the deadlines are for registration in advance of the general election. It is very, very easy. If you're not registered, go out and do it.

Scott: Ken, I appreciate you being on. Ken Verdoia, Senior Producer of Election 2000 - VoteUtah for KUED-Channel 7. Their website is www.voteutah.org. I'm Scott Winter, and this has been Feedback on the Spectrum Public Affairs Network, we'll see ya next week.