This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The announcement that Salt Lake City would host a Republican presidential debate— televised by the Fox News Chnnel — was greeted with approbation and self-satisfaction in some quarters.
"That's great for Utah!" exclaimed one local TV news anchor.
Really? Was it?
The news that the debate was canceled is seen in some quarters as costing Utah its moment in the media spotlight.
Actually, that's been wildly overstated. It was wishful thinking that ignored the evidence from previous debates.
If you were operating under the impression that Monday's debate — canceled when Donald Trump refused to come and John Kasich refused to come if Trump did not — was somehow going to be a boost for local pride or the local economy or something, you weren't watching the myriad other Republican presidential debates in this election cycle. Or the Democratic debates, for that matter.
How many of the past debate sites can you name? Even if the debates are on voters' minds, where they took place is not.
The GOP sponsored debates in Ohio, California, Colorado, Wisconsin, Nevada, South Carolina (twice), Iowa, New Hampshire (twice), Texas, Michigan and Florida. The Democrats sponsored debates in Nevada, Iowa, New Hampshire (twice), South Carolina, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Michigan and Florida.
Did any of those debates change what you thought about any of those states? Did they make you think about those states at all once the debates were over?
About 98 percent of those debates was completely generic in terms of where they took place. The vast majority of questions have nothing to do with the sites of the debates.
The one significant exception was the Democratic debate in Flint, Mich. And, fortunately, Salt Lake City isn't experiencing the same problem as Flint with its water supply.
Yes, the host city and the host state did come up. In Florida, for example, there were questions about Cuba and immigration. In Texas, the fact that Ted Cruz represents that state in the U.S. Senate came up.
But very few of the questions in past face-offs featuring Cruz, Kasich, Marco Rubio and Trump have related to the site of the debate. And the odds of Utah being mentioned more than in passing were slim.
Plus, despite some similarities, debates are not a football or a basketball game — there would have been no beauty shots of Salt Lake City (including the obligatory LDS temple shot) going into and coming out of commercial breaks. We would have seen some of that from network reporters doing stand-ups before and after the debate, but that will also be of little consequence.
This isn't negativity, it's reality. Do you know or care any more about Cleveland, Houston or Des Moines than you did before those cities hosted debates?
Scott D. Pierce covers TV for The Salt Lake Tribune. Email him at spierce@sltrib.com; follow him on Twitter @ScottDPierce.