The governor stubs his toe
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ften, politics reduces down to image -- the candidate, or issue, with the best image is successful. And in Utah politics, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone with a better image than Gov. Jon Huntsman. They don't come more clean, pressed and ready for the display window than Utah's chief executive.
At least that was true until a week or two before Tuesday's election. Huntsman made a couple of missteps this election cycle that reduced his polished image as a decisive and savvy leader. But it's too early to tell whether or not he'll be able to buff out the scratches between now and Election Day 2008.
The first was an apparent flip-flop on his pledge not to be an active campaigner for school vouchers. Huntsman, who campaigned four years ago as a voucher supporter, and who signed the voucher legislation into law earlier this year, made it clear he had done his part and would leave it to others to sell the issue to voters.
Then, with polls showing voucher support had gained no ground with voters in the months since his signature made vouchers the law, Huntsman spoke in favor of vouchers at a particularly well-lit news conference, where the voucher-supporting group Parents for Choice in Education was rolling the videotape.
Days later, Huntsman's comments at the news conference were front and center in TV commercials for vouchers.
When questioned at his monthly news conference on KUED television if he was trying to have it both ways on vouchers -- not actively campaigning on the issue because he knew most voters were opposed, but satisfying the desires of the right wing of the GOP and legislative leadership who wanted his explicit support for vouchers on the record and in the ads -- Huntsman described his role as completely passive: "I don't think there's much I can do about it. As a public person, you are out there. What you say is recorded and filmed, and I guess if you're not willing to go into the studio and cut something, then they're going to find film footage somewhere else."
The governor was then asked if he knew beforehand that the PCE cameras were going to be there: "I had no idea. I didn't see them when they were there. I didn't vet whatever was done. I just heard that it showed up, ultimately."
Then there was the recording Huntsman made to be used on a promotional DVD produced by Ogden Mayor Matthew Godfrey's re-election campaign. Huntsman's favorable words regarding Godfrey were lifted from the DVD and used in a direct-phone campaign. But when some voters complained to the governor's office, Huntsman's people asked the Godfrey campaign to stop using the voice clip in the calls, saying the campaign didn't have permission to use the governor's voice in anything but the DVD.
The governor "doesn't endorse candidates," his people said, even though he had clearly done precisely that by lending his name to the Godfrey DVD.
Neither incident was a huge deal, as these sorts of things go. But they didn't do the governor any favors. They were unusual stumbles for such a sure-footed politician.
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