Many Republicans woke up Wednesday morning with a bad taste in their mouths for the way their own congressional candidate, John Swallow, ran his campaign. Even though the blame is aimed mostly at the National Republican Congressional Committee, some party insiders are already questioning whether Swallow would get support from his party for another go at a major political office.
It's a different attitude from two years ago, when Swallow's attacks on Rep. Jim Matheson's record were a little more realistic than the volleys shot at the Democratic incumbent this time around. Republicans generally believed then that Swallow's campaign was mostly fair and focused on legitimate issues.
This year, claims that Matheson didn't support President Bush's agenda despite the fact he voted for most of Bush's major initiatives, plus the allegation that he opposed a ban on partial-birth abortion despite his vote last year for the ban, left voters questioning Swallow's integrity. The ads for Swallow even attacked Matheson for supporting bills sponsored by Republicans and backed by President Bush.
The difference in the results between a relatively clean campaign in 2002 and a perceived disingenuous campaign this year was stark. Swallow lost by less than 1 percent of the vote in 2002, which persuaded Republicans that he deserved another chance. After this year's negative campaign, Swallow was smoked by about 15 percentage points in a district weighted heavily toward Republicans thanks to GOP redistricting in 2001 primarily aimed at defeating Matheson.
What should give Republicans pause is that Derek Smith, the GOP candidate running against Matheson in 2000 when there was no incumbent in the general election, also ran what many perceived as an unfair, negative campaign. Smith lost the race, giving the Democrats the 2nd Congressional District seat for the first time in six years.
The NRCC, interestingly, did not get involved in Swallow's campaign two years ago until the last week. After Swallow lost by such miniscule margin in 2002, the national party felt it let a congressional seat within its grasp get away. So this year the NRCC pumped about $1 million into Swallow's campaign and now state Republicans are saying it was that involvement that created the train wreck for Republicans in the 2nd District.
Perhaps the NRCC, which is being blamed for most of the negative attack ads, should have learned a lesson about Utah from the 1990 campaign. Just before the election that year the Republicans ran an ad in a Utah County newspaper comparing GOP 3rd Congressional District candidate Karl Snow's family to Democrat Bill Orton's "family." Because Orton was single at the time, the ad ran a picture of Orton alone next to a picture of Snow accompanied by his wife, children and grandchildren.
The predominantly Mormon population of Utah County, which made up the bulk of the district, was so offended by the cheap shot at Orton that the Democrat won handily in what was considered the most Republican congressional district in the United States. Later, many residents said that Orton was the first Democrat they had ever voted for and it was because of the ad.
Democrats learned a costly lesson themselves in 1998 when they produced an ad attacking then-Republican 2nd Congressional District incumbent Merrill Cook which seemed to focus more on his looks than his record.
It became known as the "bad hair" ad and helped to contribute to the fairly substantial defeat of Democratic candidate Lily Eskelsen.
What arguably may have been the sleaziest political tactic of this election year in Utah came from a group supporting the Democrats. And it apparently worked.
An eleventh-hour flier from a mysterious group calling itself the "Truth in Politics PAC" displayed what it called the "Hall of Shame" and grouped several Republican legislative candidates and Salt Lake County Council candidate Steve Harmsen with troubled County Mayor Nancy Workman and County Auditor Craig Sorensen, who pleaded guilty to misusing a county credit card.
Harmsen, state Sen. James Evans and state Rep. Chad Bennion lost their races Tuesday despite the fact they had had nothing to do with the activities that led to criminal charges against Sorensen and Workman.
But Republicans believe other GOP legislators in Salt Lake County were saved by the last-minute manipulations that replaced Workman on the ballot with developer Ellis Ivory. Several Republicans were trailing in tracking polls before Ivory was included on the ballot and all but Bennion and Evans were re-elected.
prolly@sltrib.com
