This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Sen. Mike Lee continues to damage everything he touches, from the citizens of southern Utah whose livelihoods depend on visitors to our national parks to the nation itself, which lost international stature when Lee and Ted Cruz shut down the government.
Here's my proposal to liberate us from his dangerous tenure.
Jon Huntsman Jr. comes home and addresses Utah Democrats: "We must defeat Mike Lee. All you Democrats know that you can't beat Lee on your own ticket. I'm a reasonable man; I believe in science, in compromise, in listening. I'll run in the 2016 Senate race as an Independent. So don't run a Democratic Senate candidate — or run a nominal candidate — and vote for me. Hand in hand with the quiet cohort of moderate Republicans, we can replace Mike Lee in Washington and restore a share of sanity to governance."
Jon Huntsman is the most progressive candidate we can elect. And as a Democrat who has yet to live in Utah long enough to vote for a winning Senate candidate (that would have been the 1970 reelection of Ted Moss, 43 years ago), I'd celebrate a Huntsman victory and a Lee defeat.
Stephen Trimble
Salt Lake City