The results of Tuesday's primary election virtually guarantee one thing: Years of scandal at Salt Lake city hall followed by two more terms of sniping have come to a close. Unless the House minority leader and city councilman are hiding their true personalities, Utah's capital city will have a mayor who is either "reasonable" or a wonk. Neither will make flashy news copy.
But maybe that's what voters want. After all, they queued up a general election between the least colorful candidates in the field.
Voters rejected Jenny Wilson, the lone woman in the race and the early favorite. Politically androgynous former city Councilman Keith Christensen couldn't overcome voters' short-term memories and confusion about what kind of partisan animal he was - even with a $600,000 campaign and out-going Mayor Rocky Anderson's endorsement. And a passel of deluded third-tier candidates finally faded away as reality registered on the voting machine tape.
But the question still lingers: What happened to Wilson? Even those with lowered expectations expected her to emerge from Tuesday's primary.
She settled into a comfy lead months ago. The only signs of trouble came late in the race with stagnant poll numbers and a limp final debate performance. In spite of a stable of Washington beltway consultants, Wilson was back on her heels, dogged by typical front-runner scrutiny: questions about her qualifications, her two-SUV household and the way she repeatedly dropped her father's name.
A last-minute screed on working mothers penned by the mayor and published in The Salt Lake Tribune probably didn't help, but it provided opportunity for an emotional Wilson press conference sprinkled with children.
Tribune Editorial Page Editor Vern Anderson rejects any suggestion that the mayor's column affected Tuesday's outcome. He says there was nothing "nefarious" behind his decision to run the column two days before the election. He simply thought it was news. And he wanted to allow the mayor a chance to defend himself against a series of letters that ran in the paper last week. He declined to run Wilson's response, citing a Tribune editorial policy - different from newsroom policy - not to run political columns or letters on Monday or Tuesday before voters go to the polls. Sunday, he says, wasn't too close to the primary.
"Jenny Wilson and her advisers can certainly make of it what they care to make of it," he said Tuesday, before the results were in. "This issue has been around for a long time. I think voters have pretty much made up their minds about it."
Whether or not the 11th-hour column swayed voters is hard to say. Wilson's camp still privately seethes. But in the end, both Buhler and Becker may simply have outscrapped the leader.
"It shows the importance of campaigning. Those kinds of decisions matter," says Kelly Patterson, a Salt Lake City resident and director of Brigham Young University's Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy.
Wilson seemed to stall, never rising above initial pollster predictions she would get one-fourth of the vote. Tuesday conjured ghosts from 20 years ago, when her father, former mayor Ted Wilson, watched a commanding lead in the governor's race trickle away. On election night, the daughter gracefully took the punch to the gut. She was glad to participate in a "collective dialogue." Ever the loyal Democrat, she backed Becker in the next breath.
So there are two left to choose from.
The officially nonpartisan general election will be a classic contest between conservative and liberal - the first since Buhler lost to former Mayor Deedee Corradini in 1991. Becker is a quintessential Utah Democrat: compromising and familiar with losing. Buhler is a modern Salt Lake City Republican: struggling to straddle issues like gay rights and separation of church and state. Buhler is Mormon; Becker is not.
Both Buhler and Becker cast themselves as "nice" guys who play well with others - specifically, Republican legislators and the City Council. Both have distanced themselves from Rocky and his slash-and-burn style. Although Becker has reservations, both likely will approve a sky bridge over Main Street.
Neither will be as interesting as Rocky and Deedee to watch.
walsh@sltrib.com
