"I was the mayor," he says. "I wasn't a Republican or Democrat as mayor. I was mayor."

Garn says there are "no Republican or Democrat chuck holes. There are no Democrat or Republican streets to repair. There are no Democrat or Republican sewers. A mayor is a non-partisan position for a reason. A mayor is a manager."

The issue came up when Garn was asked if he still supports Keith Christensen for mayor after Christensen renounced his GOP affiliation. Christensen said that he always has been an independent thinker and does not want to be tied to any one political party and its partisan approach.

Cynics wonder if Christensen shucked the party label because Salt Lake City is predominantly Democratic and he has not been doing well in the polls, despite having raised the most money of all the candidates.

"Of course I still support Keith Christensen for mayor," Garn said. "I don't care if he is a Republican, a Democrat or an independent. I support him because Salt Lake City needs a good manager. He has run successful businesses and he has served on the City Council. That's a pretty good combination."

While mayor, Garn ran for the U.S. Senate as a Republican in 1974, defeating Democrat Wayne Owens. He served three terms in the Senate and retired in 1992. Since Garn was mayor, the city has elected Conrad Harrison, Ted Wilson, Palmer DePaulis, Deedee Corradini and Rocky Anderson, all of whom identified with the Democratic Party. But Garn says that while in office they were mayors, not partisans.

"When I served as president of the Utah League of Cities and Towns, I never asked any of the mayors of the other cities what their party affiliation was. It didn't matter. We didn't deal with partisan issues. We dealt with the mundane issues that you must deal with when you run a city."

The current mayoral race, while officially non-partisan, is teeming with political party references. Of the four leading contenders in the race, Salt Lake County Council member Jenny Wilson and House Minority Leader Ralph Becker identify strongly with the Democratic Party. Salt Lake City Council member Dave Buhler makes no bones about being a Republican. Christensen, who was a Republican, now wants to be identified as an independent.

Garn wishes party nomenclature would never come up. He says that voters should consider only the candidates' backgrounds, their abilities and their ideas for the city.

The constant partisan bickering he sees in Congress also gets Garn's goat. "There is no statesmanship any more." He says that when he was in the Senate he admired the cross-party relationships senators cultivated.

"Barry Goldwater and Hubert Humphrey were as opposite as you could get politically," he said. "And they could be engaged in fierce debates, taking opposite sides. But when it was all over, they often went out together and got a drink."

Garn, a member of the minority party in those days, said Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield "was as fine a man, as fair a man, as you'll ever find." He credits Mansfield for getting him on the Senate Appropriations Committee, a powerful slot for a young Republican from Utah.

He longs for those days now.