Interesting results have come in tonight for the Salt Lake mayoral primaries.
- The two biggest spenders, Wilson and Christensen are out
Not sad to see this, Christensen dropped his R in front of his name to an I simply to pander to the Salt Lake democrats (a republican has not been elected Salt Lake mayor in 40 years), Like Buhler, I was disappointed to see Christensen put conservative values in the back seat in order to pander to the Demo's. He also repeatedly used an old rhetorical trick called 'disinterest' explaining how he was convinced to run for mayor through the urging of Mr. Rocky Anderson. (not his idea of course.. I'm sure Rocky also had to talk him into spending over $600,000 on his campaign)
- Becker and Buhler are in:
I predicted neither of these candidates passing through the primaries. Becker always seemed unassuming and along with Buhler, they did not express much opinion.
Buhler ran his campaign accenting the fact that he really had no principles, and was so easy going he could work with anybody. Let's hope if elected he's not as much of a pushover as he likes to sound.
I'm also weary of how much Becker has staked his campaign on environmental issues. Although important, the city needs fiscal and financial health as well. He wants to spend our money on more and more trax lines to reduce commuter traffic, where if the demand for such lines were to be high enough, would be able to pay for itself. I'm also baffled again by his opposition to the skybridge which would allow more convenient access through downtown businesses and shopping attractions. Instead he claims disallowing the skybridge (which 70% of Utahns support) would 'open up' downtown. When this 'opening up' is actually just forcing shoppers to scurry about the streets trying to get to their next location because it would somehow be more pleasing for him. Besides these facts, it creeps me out how closely he resembles the devil on his campaign site: (
http://www.ralphbecker.com/)
