This week I'm writing about another shared trait between the two highly accomplished men: a well-intended but ego-driven desire to impose their will on an election, with a result quite different from their goal.

Anderson, who has said he would not run for a third term and has endorsed former Salt Lake City Council member Keith Christensen, hinted recently that if he is not satisfied with the two finalists after the Sept. 11 primary election, he might enter the race as a write-in candidate.

Here is the irony: Such a move likely would ensure the election of Anderson's political enemy, City Council member David Buhler, who Anderson has said would be a disaster as mayor. The other irony is that Lee did the exact same thing in 1958.

Lee, an anti-tax Republican who often ignored party edicts, wanted to run for a third term as governor in 1956. But the establishment had grown tired of the outspoken, rebellious, populist icon and got behind Republican rival George Dewey Clyde, who defeated Lee for the nomination and then won the general election to become Utah's 10th governor.

Lee held a grudge against Utah's senior U.S. senator, Arthur D. Watkins, who was part of the group that had backed Clyde. So two years later, when Watkins was up for re-election, Lee challenged him in the Republican convention. Watkins prevailed, so Lee ran as an independent, splitting the Republican vote and guaranteeing the election of Democrat Frank Moss, who otherwise would not have had a chance against the popular Watkins.

Moss, who would serve three terms before being defeated in 1976 by Orrin Hatch, was everything Lee was not. He believed in a strong federal role in solving problems and felt that some businesses needed to be regulated to protect the consumer. Lee's political philosophy was much closer to that of Watkins, but he single-handedly elected the liberal.

Now comes Anderson. The liberal mayor is the polar opposite of Buhler, a former state senator who Anderson has claimed is too beholden to the LDS Church when the church is involved in secular matters. Buhler, as a conservative Republican in a Democratic city, normally would have no chance of being elected. He ran for mayor in 1991 and, because several Democrats in the race split the vote among them, was able to survive the primary. He then was trounced in the general election by traditional Democrat Deedee Corradini.

In 1999, when Corradini chose not to run for a third term, again there were several Democrats in the race. Moderates Jim Bradley, Mike Zuhl and Dave Jones canceled each other out in the primary, and Anderson squared off against conservative Stuart Reid in the general election, winning handily.

The same scenario is likely again. With two strong Democrats - Jenny Wilson and Ralph Becker - in the race, along with the moderate Republican Christensen, who hopes to draw support from both halves of the political spectrum, Buhler stands a good chance of getting through the primary. He then would have a hard time winning the general election against a liberal opponent.

Anderson, though, by splitting the Democratic vote as a write-in, could create the perfect Lee-like storm that would get Buhler elected.