| Show 7°71771 r I Editorial Desk: 1 Id-7- A10 THURSDAY March 5 1992 237-201- 9 'oneirtl 17:3"1'1' s ZhealtrakeZribtant - !' s Y041--"L''- z Surprising Democratic Turnout Shows Support for '96 Primary elections Still Utahns went to the polls And they made an impact Even though Utah will send only 07 percent of the party's delegates to the national convention in New York this summer Tuesday's voters have a right to believe they carried more weight than that in the Democrats' derby due to the early placement of the primary t‘' Conservationists have successfully blocked plans for new roads timber harvests grazing mineral exploration and energy development that rural residents have hoped would rescue their economies from decline But there are right and wrong ways to deal with the pressures and radicals who would attempt to reclaim Utah lands from federal agencies are heading down a dead end As Jon Ure reported in Sunday's Tribune places like Moab where uranium mining and ranching once supported a large share of the community are hurting Since 1980 Grand County has lost 1967 percent of its population Tourism and other new industries have failed to fill the void left by mine closures Legitimate efforts are being made to strengthen rural Utah economies For example the Southeast Utah Association of Local Governments is trying to develop new industries and support existing ones with local economic development planning business training and revolving loan funds But some county leaders are unwilling for wait for results By Tribune reporter Christopher Smith's account representatives of Grand Uintah Garfield Wayne Emery Rich Sanpete and San Juan counties have banded together to assert control over federal lands now administered by the Bureau of Land Management Forest Service and National Park Service They would finance their effort with a portion of the planning grant land-us- e $900000 they're seeking from the state's Permanent Community Impact Board Meanwhile the Utah Association of Counties has hired attorney Karen Budd to develop "local control" guidelines that supposedly would give county land-us- e decisions as much weight as Uintah County for examlaw federal the authority to honor claim would ple or ignore the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and the Threatened and Endan Environmental Nil' prti t ' 1 land-user- Now most Americans aggressively represented by environmental activists realize that their natural resources are limited vulnerable to abuse and deserving of protection Federal lands belong to all US citizens not just those who live near them or use them to make a living Those lands therefore must be managed in e interests of all the best Americans When national priorities conflict with local interests the federal system dictates that the rights of the long-rang- majority will prevail All Americans including residents of rural Utah counties have access to the federal decision-makinprocess through public hearings elected political representatives and as a last resort the courts While comprehensive land-us- e planning might enable counties to better present their priorities to federal regulators a radical movement won't keep environmental interests at bay or revive traditions of the Old West Instead of trying to capture land they never owned Utah counties should be developing realistic plans and programs for attracting and supporting compatible industries g - tl '& 1 r- k - - '- --- - 'a 4 ittriVii 111 111 I 1 1414j kW' K 4 - - it Ili ' -- V - Le r X4of AMAIM ?1ftew 1461 771c? 4 t 11I ' 11 'f 1 11 t I 1 41t re- quires federal agencies to "preserve important historic cultural and natural aspects of our national heritage" authorizes such If communities have depended on the "customs" of livestock grazing mining or timber production she explains NEPA gives them the right to protect those "customs" of course federal land managers should take into account the impact of their decisions on local customs and economies A fair sensitive nation s would treat long-tim- e with understanding and compassion easing the transition to new traditions whenever possible But rural Utahns shouldn't kid themselves Conditions have changed tremendously since the West was first settled and land was considered expendable 0 ' P ' ) A's' J 1 rr : 04 T 4 - - 0 c IP 3 v o050 r k - 141 : -- - :- -1 Irv" ' - L 17----7-------- 14- ' f" - 010 00 - '''-- - : --- 4 -3- --- - 1 oille- heol) desert) rizi notices 0n thins at his 4'4) cir'cle orninoucv over-- Gcluffiting Int() I - (kIlturt (11211 shot ci' Titan ri -- - toc oisf - - 4t 4i1 ')i - ---- I ! (M8111coh6 quiz- zicolly at - (CICr-111- al ) - by lk - 41- - r i 0-- '''44' )' 'RI: illt-- : ti'' si'c ‘"'r '61 - v- - 1- - r : 1(1-:t- - -- --- (11et a? can ) 9s1 4 belP8 oPened) 1 (NI 1- A 4yEur- tossing teacil - vo 664- -1 N 1 I (4i‘t-11(-' Put (AnDouncer) 5ane Ill Your P5rt4Y Bush Should Watch His Left Flank By Paul N McCloskey Jr FOR NEWSDAY A rThly jiiteroir:h'r remarkable phenomenon may be tak- )1 ing place in this presidential campaign g liberal Republiyear: The canism of Jacob Javits Nelson Rockefeller and Charles Goodell is again becoming once-vanishin- : acceptable if not actually desirable in Republican presidential candidates Despite Pat Buchanan's success in New Hampshire it has not escaped President Bush's campaign staff that his chances for may vanish altogether if he tries to reassume the mantle of "true" Reagan conservatism the abandonment of which Buchanan insists is heresy The fact of the matter is that President Reagan's increased defense spending tax cuts and excessive deregulation may have brought the US economy close to the same bankruptcy that the republics of the former Soviet Union and communist regimes elsewhere now face Reaganomics and deregulation are no longer perceived as politically beneficial in the wake of the collapse of the savings and loan industry and the market for junk bonds The real challenge to Bush in 1992 comes not from the Republican right but from the moderate positions of the leading Democratic contenders Bill Clinton Bob Kerrey and Paul Tsongas None of these candidates carries the baggage of the liberal Democratic left Bush however may be tagged perhaps unfairly with the baggage of the conservative Republican right It is not a good year to claim conservatism if its symbols are Keating Boesky and Milken Tsongas sounds enough like a Republican pragmatist to make him acceptable in most temples of Republican orthodoxy Clinton's platform comes close in many ways to the principles George Bush professed in his unsuccessful campaign against Reagan in 1980 And Congressional Medal of Honor winner Kerrey can scarcely be tagged "soft on about the crime" or flag those marvelous bugbears that destroyed Dukakis in 1988 almost before c' ("J '''‘ ' ( j 11"u ma I Paul McCloskey pro-busine- ss tly and who believed strongly in civil rights and reasonable gun control enforcement of the antitrust laws and responsible regulation of banks the drug industry and securities dealers A liberal Republican might be the first to suggest that not all wars (such as Vietnam) were worthwhile and that slavish support of Israel was not in the national interest A liberal Republican would support the United Nations as a necessary if cumbersome advance toward world peace under world law A conservative Republican although adamant about the need for fiscal responsibility might insist on cutting taxes while increasing defense spending and the deficit justifying this aberration by pointing out that all would be well if only "social" spending could be cut which he knows could never happen while the "liberal" Democrats control Congress The conservative Republican would ordinarily deplore the United Nations as a threat to American sovereignty and denounce the right to an abortion and any form of gun control He would support Israel as our only reliable democratic ally in the Mideast no matter what Israel did in violaof international or US law He 4 insist that governmental J is the key to restoring the deregulatikn prosperity that only unfettered American entrepreneurs can achieve for the nation To the true conservative a liberal or moderate Republican has no principles He stands for nothing and looks too much like a Democrat Against the perceived excesses of the welfare state and the Great Society the term "conservative" for a time achieved great popularity s a liberal Republican By the e211 st-lo- gly may well be the candiaate Wh attracts the great American center rather than the ideologues of the right or left What is or was a "liberal Republican" anyway? One definition might be a Republican who although favoring balanced budgets believed in reasonable expenditures for health welfare housing and unemployment benefits who believed in a woman's right to choose to terminate a pregnancy H Y Jimmy ' mid-'80- was joked about as a member of an endangered if not a vanished species George Bush from his unparalleled observation post as vice president could easily perceive that he had no chance to win the Republican nomination in 1988 unless he changed his long-hel- d positions on abortion and gun control With Michael Dukakis as his opponent it was both beneficial and easy to profess loyalty to Reagan's economic politics whatever private doubts he may have retained about "voodoo economics" Upon becoming president however Bush did exactly what conservatives feared he would do Although neither he nor his aides would admit it they must have perceived that the excessive spending and deregulation of the Reagan years had become a liability Bush quietly agreed to "revenue enhancement" (new taxes) reinstated enforcement of the antitrust laws put teeth into regulation of the savings and loan and banking industries pushed for stronger regulation by the Food and Drug AdmitlAration and supported stronger action by the Securities and Exchange Commission As that marvelous Irish pixie Pat Bu- chanan correctly perceived nearly all of these actions represented a return to Re- publican liberalism To the true conservatives Buskhas always been a closet liberal and it will be a tragedy if the word "moderate" again becomes an acceptable part of Republican rhetoric Republicans like to win however and with Democrat presidential candidates' sounding like liberal Republicans it will be understandable if the president contin- ues to move to the center rather than to court the fate of the last Republican president Herbert Hoover in 1932: The great pendulum 'of American public opinion appears to be inexorably swinging back to center What an irony it would be if Pat Buchanan's crusade to pre- serve conservatism encourages Bush to admit to and take credit for the actions he' has been taking these past several years to reinvigorate government and move away from the excesses of Republican conservatism Oh would that Jake Javits Nelson Rockefeller and Charlie Goodell were still around to marvel at their belated return to Republican grace after 15 years of one-ter- near-oblivio- m n Paul McCloskey was a Republican congressman from California from 1967 to 1983 and a candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 1972 Why Not Run for President? - KING FEATURES SYNDICATE Every day there's a story on the television news or in the papers about what Democrat not currently running for president might jump into the race Mario Cuomo and Richard Gephardt are the most frequently mentioned although Mario Cuomo (it is politically incorrect and insensitive to Italian Americans not to use both Mario Cuomo's names as to referring to him over and over as just "Mario") got an interesting message from New Hampshire write-ivoters The message was 3 percent And Gephardt is sort of old hat He ran for president last time and wasted a lot of other people's money So are we left with the Fidd lin' Five? I hope not What the Democrats need to have any chance of recapturing the White House is a star Let's look at the current five candidates Paul Tsongas: The only ether two words I can think of that begin with TS are Tsar and Tsetse the fly both of which are bad Tom Harkin: Who? Bob Kerrey: He looks like he's 11 years n old Bill Clinton: He acts like he's 11 years old Jerry Brown: I'm tryirg to write a serious column here 'I - III 4 (9rIre trudgnS that the National Policy Act which PEP - SOlitarY gered Species Act Ms Budd contends 11 t 14ett through I 1115 ---- hold presidential primaries for both parties 411brd rd r)46 0 " --— ttt‘ Utahns joined Maryland voters in making Paul Tsongas a national candidate instead of the regional one he was perceived to be Utah and Colorado voters qualified Jerry Brown for federal matching funds by giving him over 20 percent of the vote Utalms helped to push Bob Kerrey to the brink of withdrawal — he cancelled his campaign appearances Wednesday — by giving him only 11 percent of the vote despite his personal visit here Sunday And by giving Tom Harkin only 4 percent they underlined the advantage of having a primary instead of a caucus Harkin the choice of organized labor has shown strength so far only in caucuses — Iowa Idaho and Minnesota But he has drawn almost imperceptible support at the polls He may or may not have done better in a caucus in Utah but the truer gauge of public support for him came at the ballot box That's where the American voters want their presidential candidates chosen And that's where Utahns both Republicans and Democrats should be able to make their choices in 1996 Utah's Republicans didn't hold a primary this year because they didn't want to tarnish George Bush's standing — and because they may have feared a strong David Duke showing — but they won't have that excuse in 1996 when Dan Quayle Pat Buchanan and others will be competing for the nomination Once Utah establishes an official presidential primary it will draw many more voters than Tuesday's 31000 which after all was only about half of the turnout for sparse South Dakota's Democratic primary last week If Tuesday's turnout was modest by some standards though it was still plenty large enough to support the argument that Utah should join the other 36 states that t i iL rir---- i- Temper Public Land Conflicts The environmental movement has taken its toll on rural Utah communities long dependent upon federal lands I ) V1"111:110 - apples-and-orang- - - 1i The Democratic Party isn't accustomed to making persuasive political statements in Utah but it certainly made one Tuesday The Democrats have strongly stated the case that Utah should join the American mainstream and stage an official presidential primary for both parties in 1996 and beyond Tuesday's Democratic presidential primary the first in the state's history was quite a success More than 31000 Utahns voted in the open primary and whether they were declared Democrats interested Independents or misch:evous Republicans they were all expressing a desire to participate directly in the presidential nomination process The turnout was three times larger than state party officials expected It was larger than the turnout of about 26000 for the official primary for Salt Lake City mayor last October Granted that is an comparison between a statewide and local elec tion but far more publicity and organization attended the mayoral primary last fall than surrounded Tuesday's experiment Indeed it was the apparent lack of publicity and organization that raised fears of another Democratic boondoggle and made Tuesday's turnout all the more remarkable This was a hastily organized endeavor — so hasty that in its latest weekly edition Congressional Quarterly was still listing Utah's event as a caucus Not only that but the voting window was only five hours wide Tuesday as opposed to 13 hours for official - - -- GLriezwzard i If those five guys were professional basketball team they'd be the Orlando Magic If the Democrats can't flush something better out of the bushes presidential elections are going to begin to resemble Super Bowls which usually are routs When's the last time we've really had a cliffhanger presidential election when the networks' computers couldn't project a winner two days before the polls open? I want another good race simply because it makes watching the election night returns on television a lot more exciting I gave a party at my house on election night 1980 when Ronald Reagan and incumbent Jimmy Carter were running The networks declared Reagan the winner before we had time to light the fire in the grill to cook the hamburgers All my guests went home early and I had to eat hamburgers for a month So do I have a Democratic candidate in mind to bring out of the bullpen? Of 1 - course or I'd never have started all this I would like to see James Earl Carter shock the world and announce he is run' ning for president again Looking back in 1992 he really didn't do that bad a job when he was president before He just got some lousy press and a sandstorm aborted the daring rescue of the hostages in Iran And he perhaps has been our best former president ever Gerald Ford has played golf since leaving office Jimmy Carter has been trying his darnedest to straighten out the world You put Jimmy Carter alongside the current five Democratic candidates and see how impressive he looks and sounds I've come up with a great idea here My personal choice for president in 1992 is Pat Buchanan because if I can't be president I'd like to see another columnist make it But I'd still enjoy another Carter ran Billy's not around to liven things up anymore but this time Jimmy wouldn't have to bring a malaise with him We've already got a doozie and he had nothing to do with it I'm relatively certain President Carter sometimes reads my columns He's even called me before to correct me on something I had wrong So if you're reading this: Run Jimmy run All is forgiven S |
