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Show i Kopitke claims he has 'bold message' for Utah I - ' I ' 1 i By MARK EDDINGTON Staff Writer BOUNTIFUL Kyle Kopitke, a mass file consultant working for the LDS Church Family History Department and a Democratic candidate can-didate for the U.S. Senate, has what he calls a "bold message" for Utah voters. "What I'm saying is that Kopitke is not for sale," the candidate told the Clipper in an interview Wednesday. Not willing to accept any campaign cam-paign contributions from political action committees or from out of state sources, Kopitke is organizing an army of volunteers to get enough signatures to put an initiative on the ballot next November that would limit the amount of PAC money candidates and political parties could receive to $100 in a calendar year. "These contributions are nothing more than legalized bribes," Kopitke said. "If I give you $30,000 and come back later to ask for a little favor, you're going to have a difficult time saying no. ' j A second initiative Kopitke is I working for would limit U.S. and ! state senators to two terms, U.S. and state representatives to three I terms, and county officials to two ; terms. The petition is similar to one made by gubernatorial candidate Merrill Cook. The major difference is Cook wants to place his on the ballot in '94 and Kopitke doesn't want to wait that long. It takes 64,000 signatures to get an initiative placed on the ballot. Kopitke's goal is 100,000. He also said he needs 400 to 450 votes at the Democratic convention on June 12 to force a primary run-off against Rep. Wayne Owens for the party nomination to the U.S. Senate. A total of 2,500 delegates will cast votes at the convention. Owens needs to gamer 70 percent of the vote to capture the Democratic nomination outright. Kopitke feels 400 votes is a reasonable goal that, combined with a fairly strong showing from Anderson, should force a primary pitting himself against Owens. "Anderson needs to do well and I must do slightly better than Anderson," he said. As expected, Owens was favored by the majority of those questioned in a Dan Jones poll conducted about a month ago. Doug Anderson polled second, but was only three percentage points ahead of Kopitke despite outspending him by $100,000. Kopitke is a self-admitted idealist who has no paid staff or campaign manager. He adamantly refuses to accept money from any special hi' terest and will not accept more than $100 from any household. His message is that his candidacy is for the forgotten middle-class who, unlike many elected officials, must live from paycheck to paycheck. "I understand what it is to live that type of lifestyle. I don't think either of my two opponents who are on a different economic scale can really relate," he said. His money woes prevent Kopitke from getting the kind of exposure he needs. He is counting on a groundswell of grass-roots support similar to what he received in 1990 when he ran for Salt Lake County Assessor. Kopitke received 84,000 votes, four percent less than incumbent incum-bent Bob Yates. Although he was defeated, Kopitke's strong showing was seen by some political observers as something of a moral victory. Most experts had said he stood little chance. Kopitke's army currently numbers about 250 volunteers who have committed to attend mass meetings April 27 and court convention con-vention delegates for votes. Supporters Sup-porters feel a primary runoff between be-tween Kopitke and Owens would enable their candidate to get more media exposure which could serve to equalize the current disparity in campaign dollars between the two candidates. "We can solve our problems, but only when we Stan electing people from the middle-class that are not owned by special interest groups," he said. A sampling of Kopitke's stand on various issues: He is deeply committed to opening the Warren Commission files and reopening the investigation investiga-tion into the assassination of President Presi-dent John F. Kennedy. Kopitke has been actively involved in researching resear-ching the assassination and believes Kennedy was killed by rogue elements in the Central Intelligence Agency who were in league with big oil and nuclear power interests. He believes the CIA was involved because of a belief the president was soft on communism. He favors eliminating the country's reliance on nuclear power in favor of cheaper, cleaner alternative alter-native source of energy. He doesn't yet specify what form of energy that should be. He favors removing the ceilings ceil-ings on medical school admissions, which he asserts would lead to more doctors, greater competition and help keep costs down. He warns current congressional Democratic and Republican health care proposals pro-posals unfairly place the burden of paying for reform on the middle class. Kopitke advocates placing a moratorium on designating any more wilderness areas in Utah until the year 2000. He wants to see a smoke-free Utah by the year 2000 and would work toward that goal by advocating ad-vocating large sales tax increases on cigarettes. He wants to cut the defense budget, but warns that burying the axe to deep or making indiscriminate in-discriminate cuts could jeopardize national security. Kopitke favors tax reform. He advocates either a flat tax or a national sales tax. Kyle Kopitke, Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, is relying on an army of volunteers instead of campaign contributions con-tributions to assist him in his bid to force a primary runoff between be-tween himself and U.S. Rep. Wayne Owens for the party nomination. |