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Where Are They Now:
Raylene Ireland
What's it like moving from state politics to city politics? “It's like going from headquarters to the front lines,” says Raylene Ireland, director of Community and Governmental Affairs for Provo City. Ireland has actually gone back to her roots. She spent time working in Provo City for former Mayor Joe Jenkins back in the late 80s.
Now, after a 12-year career as a state department director (Administrative Services and Workforce Services) and member of the Cabinet for former Govs. Mike Leavitt and Olene Walker , Ireland is back in Provo, putting out fires for Mayor Lewis Billings .
“We're so much closer to the people and the actual delivery of services,” Ireland said. “While I dealt with a lot of large problems at the state level, there is a faster tempo and more immediacy in the city.” She deals directly with the news media and gets involved in a wide variety of city issues.
The atmosphere is particularly intense in city government this year because Billings is seeking his third term in office and his re-election isn't expected to be easy. Billings is a hard-driving mayor who says and does what he thinks is right. He isn't afraid to mix it up, and over his nearly eight years in office he's picked up his share of opponents and detractors. A Provo mayor hasn't sought a third term since Verl Dixon back in the 60s.
“This will be an exciting year and I love working at this level, engaging directly with citizens,” Ireland said.
Mike Mower: The Answer Guy
Have a question you need answered? Just call Mike Mower in the governor's office. He has all the answers. I was listening to “Let Me Speak to the Governor” on KSL Radio Tuesday evening and every time Gov. Huntsman got a question that was too esoteric to immediately answer, he referred the caller to Mike Mower. Mike knows. He can tell you why stars twinkle, the number of grains of sand on the seashore, and what birds say when they chirp. He can tell you why Democrats are clueless, and he even fathoms the minds of legislators. Plus, I'm going to call him when I need help with my daughter's algebra problems. Besides all that, Mower, the governor's director of legislative and constituent affairs, is one of the really nice guys in politics and he even, thankfully, has a sense of humor.
Reader Response
Talent and Red
(Submitted in response to my highly lucid Casual Friday post about a British study showing a connection between wearing red and winning sporting events)
“I think you may have misunderstood the conclusions of the study. There is no direct magical connection between winning and the color red. The connection is with talent and red. Red obviously attracts those with the greatest talent, be they players, coaches, or politicians. The winning then just comes naturally.”
-- Mark Fotheringham , “a red-blooded Utahn and curmudgeon-in-training”
Words to Remember
"War is an ugly thing," wrote 19th Century political philosopher John Stuart Mill , "but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling, which thinks that nothing is worth war is worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature...." (Source: The Federalist Patriot)
National Politics
Are GOP Member of Congress at Risk?
The last few months have not been kind to President Bush or the Republican-controlled Congress. But in his Tuesday column (subscribe here), political analyst Charlie Cook says not many Republicans are in any danger for re-election. Here are some excerpts:
The political environment is not good right now for Republicans. Recent polling shows low approval ratings for President Bush and Congress, as well as an increasingly pessimistic electorate.
So what might this mean for House candidates running in the 2006 midterm elections? Probably not much.
With the obvious caveat that anything can happen between now and then, the reality is that incumbents have become more insulated than ever from the push and pull -- good or bad -- of the political environment.
The incredible amount of money funneled into House contests, redistricting processes that have created more safe seats and voters' hardened partisan loyalties all play a role in protecting incumbents at a level that has not been seen before.
Most of the incumbents who have lost in recent years are those who gave their opponent a big, fat opening for attack -- such as Rep. Philip Crane, R-Ill. -- or were redistricted into enemy territory . . .
In addition, there aren't that many incumbents who sit in the so-called wrong district.
For example, in the 1992 election, 103 congressional districts split their tickets between the presidential nominee of one party and a congressional nominee of the other. In 2004, there were only 59 ticket-splitting districts.
The sheer volume of campaign cash flowing into a handful of House races also helps to protect incumbents like never before. The average competitive House contest costs at least $3 million. Add independent spending and money from outside groups and that number swells to more like $5 million.
House races now are so expensive and media-driven that they become isolated from the national political ebb and flow and ultimately are decided on an individual basis.
In recent years, Republicans have done the best job of detaching individual House races from the bigger political environment by trying to undermine the credibility of the Democratic nominees as early as possible. This ensures that the Democrat will be too damaged to take advantage of change in the political environment closer to the election.
Ten years ago or so, incumbents who polled at less than 50 percent for their re-election number were considered to be in imminent danger. Today, that danger line has slipped to closer to 45 percent or less.
A Pew Research Center for People and the Press poll of 1,502 adults -- conducted May 11-15, with a three-point error margin -- showed both Republican and Democratic "leaders in Congress" were under 40 percent in their approval ratings. Republican leaders in Congress saw their disapproval rating at 50 percent -- nine points higher than Democratic leaders.
But, when asked the question if you approve or disapprove of the job your own member of Congress is doing, 49 percent said approve and 23 percent said disapprove.
In its analysis of the findings, the Pew Research Center wrote that "this is comparable to measures of satisfaction in the summer of 1993, a year before the historic midterm elections in 1994 in which the Democratic Party lost its majority in the House."
While voters consistently point to such things as the economy, fuel prices and Iraq as their most pressing issues, most of what they see coming out of Capitol Hill involves filibusters, ethics debates and Terri Schiavo.
Democrats, of course, hope they can tag Republicans with the blame for being out-of-touch with voters. But the Pew poll showed that voters are spreading the blame.
Open seats are much more vulnerable to the political environment, but there are few competitive open seats. Still, if elections were held today, the three most vulnerable open seats -- those held by Reps. Ted Strickland, D-Ohio, Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, and Bob Beauprez, R-Colo., would all tilt to the Democrats' favor.
And ultimately, as the party in control of Congress, Republicans have more on the line than Democrats if a national mood breaks through the increasing insulation of the last few election cycles. |
Utah
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