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KUER News Transcript: June 30, 2000
By Vince Pearson

By the time Congressman Merrill Cook set out to run for a third term, he was a vulnerable target for both Democrats and members of his own party. Cook hadn't put to rest allegations of a hot temper, and when challenger Derek Smith walked neighborhoods, sometimes all he had to say was, "I'm running against Merrill Cook," and people didn't even care what Smith stood for. But that won't work anymore. Now both Smith and Democratic candidate Jim Matheson are going to have to find selling points bigger than, "I'm not Merrill Cook."

If you ask Derek Smith how he came out of nowhere and stole the Republican nomination from a two-term incumbent, he'll tell you they voted for him based on the issues. If you ask people who voted for him, many will tell you what they didn't like about Merrill Cook.

VOTERS: "I voted for Derek Smith. I just have a certain opinion about Merrill Cook. I just feel like some of the campaigning strategies that he utilized are kind of negative." "At the risk of sounding radicalized myself, I think the man has a problem." "Well, because, I mean, because I heard Merrill Cook going through all these things and I just didn't like how he's been using his power."

PEARSON: "You voted for him because you support him or you just don't want Cook in office?"

VOTER: "Probably didn't want Cook in office, but I thought Derek Smith would be better-- (laughs) however that works."

Without exit polls, there's no scientific way to know what voters were thinking when they nominated the businessman from Sandy, by a margin of 59 to 41. But political analyst Matthew Burbank says he believes it was more about voting Cook out of office than voting Smith in.

BURBANK: "In general the reason that I believe it was a mostly anti-Cook vote is because, if you look at the nature of Derek Smith's message, his message is dealing with traditional Republican themes, not terribly innovative, and it's the kind of message any one of ten different Republican candidates could have done credibly. So it's hard to believe that that by itself would attract voters to vote against an incumbent."

Burbank says with Cook out of the race, Smith will need to focus on the issues. He says Smith's narrow focus on such conservative issues as flatter taxes and education reform may have worked in the Republican primary. But to succeed in Utah's notoriously fickle second district, Burbank says Smith will need to broaden his appeal, to reach Republicans, Democrats and independents.

BURBANK: "I don't think this is a district where you can simply appeal to your party and hope to win. There are some places in the United States where that still works. This is not one of those districts."

And that could be an advantage for the Democrats, as, so far, Smith has indicated no willingness to expand his issues.

SMITH: "There are so many issues that are important to the people in the second district, that it is easy to lose focus. So right now I am trying to keep my eye on the ball for reforming education and lowering taxes and beyond that we'll take it on a case-by-case basis."

Staff and volunteers at the Jim Matheson headquarters are recruiting campaign volunteers to gear up for the coming race. Jim Matheson says they've been watching the primary race with interest, with no real concern about the result. Matheson says he plans to run the same race either way.

MATHESON: "We really didn't have a good sense of what was going to happen either way and from our perspective it really didn't matter. I'm not really running against anyone. I want to take this campaign out and talk about who I am and the issues I care about."

In a sense Matheson has a problem like Derek Smith's. He's got a well-known name, but he's not well known to voters. Burbank says both candidates will need to become well-rounded people, with a cohesive, relevant message.

BURBANK: "Neither one of them has a whole lot of political experience personally. They haven't run for this kind of office before and so it's a circumstance where both of them will have to work hard to get their message across and they're going to have to make sure their campaign organization is working well."

In the second district voters have a choice between two brand-new candidates. Neither one has a record, and neither one has extra baggage. Burbank says it's a toss-up as to who really has the advantage.