Page 2 of 3

DeChristopher hit the phones, rounding up longtime progressive activists to help in choosing a candidate. It wasn’t hard to recruit them. “I don’t think I ever finished the pitch for anyone. Pretty much I would be midway through my first sentence, and people would say, ‘Yes, whatever it is, if it’s an effort to take out Jim Matheson, I’m in.’ ” The panelists included Brian Moench, a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists and founder of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment; Utah Coalition of La Raza president Archie Archuleta; and others. Equality Utah´s executive director Brandie Balken also participated but not as a representative of her organization, which doesn’t work on federal races.

On Jan. 30, the panelists and members of the public interviewed the finalists at the Salt Lake City Main Library. Around 100 people attended. Each resident of the 2nd District was allowed to vote in an instant-runoff election. The voters chose University of Utah professor of pathology John Weis, who argued Congress needs more scientists and engineers. Weis dropped out days later, stating he hadn’t expected to win and hadn’t adequately anticipated the time commitments.

No re-vote was necessary, however, because instantrunoff elections gauge the electorate’s preferences for each candidate. With Weis out of the running, the winner became University of Utah gender-studies professor Claudia Wright (left). Salt Lake City-born Wright taught at Cottonwood High School for 31 years and now teaches in the humanities and education departments of the University of Phoenix in addition to the University of Utah. She’s a lifelong Democrat and a lesbian who is serious about winning.

“If you want a citizen-based government and democracy, this is how you do it,” Wright says of the Citizens’ Candidate model. “If you want a plutocracy that is run by corporate interests, [contemporary party politics] is how you do it. Choose. Because that’s really what it’s going to come down to. … I think we are dominated by special interests and lobbyists, and that’s exactly what I’m calling Matheson out on.”

Wright is a strong supporter of single-payer universal health care, marriage equality for same-sex couples, a carbon tax and public financing of all elections. She says Matheson is a servant to his corporate donors who cares too much about being re-elected and not enough about progressive policies.

The Citizens’ Candidate activists serve as Wright’s energetic and unpaid campaign staff, now numbering almost 20 committed people. Ashley Anderson says, “We have more people offering to help than we know what to tell them to do.” There is plenty to do, however, and most of the Citizens’ Candidate activists are new to party politics, precincts, conventions and the like. “A lot of us don’t know what we’re doing,” Ashley Anderson says. “We’ve been seeking advice from a lot of people.”

The effort may be gaining momentum in political circles. Lafon says progressive heavyweight MoveOn. org—which Lafon says counts 23,000 members in Utah, including 14,000 in the 2nd District—have not officially endorsed or funded Citizens’ Candidate, but he’s hoping they will sign on. MoveOn has criticized Matheson in the past, running a radio-ad campaign during 2009 urging residents to call Matheson and ask him to change his stance on health-care reform.

Party Planning
Wright has the tactical instincts necessary to make Matheson anxious at convention—if anyone can. She heard from party insiders, for example, that San Juan County has never organized a mass meeting to elect delegates to the Democratic Party Convention. If she can round up just a handful of supporters in the county to host such a meeting, those votes could be a gimme. She knows it’s an uphill battle, though, and talks about matching tough strategy with passion.

What Wright doesn’t have, however, is much time, and it’ll take her roughly six hours by car just to cross into San Juan County lines from her home in Salt Lake City. Some political watchers say there just isn’t enough time left before the March caucus meetings to get anything out of the May Democratic Convention besides a speech, the party equivalent of a green participation ribbon.

Rocky Anderson, Matheson’s most prominent critic, supports the Citizens’ Candidate initiative “as a nice way to bring attention” to Matheson’s shortcomings but believes Wright should be running as an independent or a third-party candidate. His goal is to remove Matheson, whatever it takes. He thinks Wright and her inexperienced campaign volunteers have no chance of surviving the convention. The Citizens’ Candidate movement could have more impact, he says, by creating a spoiler effect that might force Matheson to move left to ensure he doesn’t lose too many progressive votes.

There are currently two declared Republican candidates for the party’s nomination to challenge Matheson: American Fork resident Morgan Philpot (left) and Neil Walter of St. George. Philpot, the former state party vice chair who served in the Legislature between 2000 and 2004, was skeptical that he’d correctly heard that the Citizens’ Candidate group was working inside the Democratic Party. “Is it true they’re running at the Democratic Convention?” asked the small-government, low-taxes, states-rights Republican. “Who talked them into that? They’re going to be led surely and quietly to their grave in this election by doing that. It doesn’t really help me because I know exactly where they’re going to be taken in the Democratic Party Convention: They’re going to be shown the door.”

Former Congressman Cook agrees that Utah Democrats might prefer Wright, but he says pragmatism will take over at convention. “The heart of the Democratic Party will probably be where [Wright] is, and yet the leadership and unions and people that provide the money and the establishment part of the Democratic Party will be holding tight to Matheson, I can assure you of that.”

Wright bristles at suggestions that her campaign will be squashed six months before the general election vote, or that an independent candidacy may be more effective. “I’m not going to run a write-in campaign; I’m not going to be an independent. … Democrats are a rare breed enough in this state. We do not need to kill off each other.”

She argues that the best way to neutralize Matheson’s corporate sponsors and strengthen the Democratic Party is to work precinct-by-precinct to grab delegates. “[The Citizens’ Candidate campaign] is only unrealistic to the political pundit who’s only done it one way. ... In my voting district, usually when I go to the mass meeting there are seven to nine [party members], which makes five the majority. It only takes five of you to make a delegate in a lot of places in this city.”