Salt Lake Tribune endorses Democrat Anderson for mayor!

[Sean Reynolds]

This ran in today's Salt Lake Tribune! GO ROCKY! :bounce:
http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Oct/10052003/opinion/98453.asp

Anderson for S.L. mayor

SNIP

If an out-of-state visitor wanted to get a glimpse of Salt Lake City's evolving diversity, she could simply look at the mayor's race.
The incumbent, Rocky Anderson, is a Democrat, a white, male, inactive Mormon and card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union. One of his challengers, Frank Pignanelli, also a Democrat, is a Catholic and former state legislator whose Italian immigrant grandfather ran booze during Prohibition. The other serious challenger is Molonai Hola, a Republican and an active Latter-day Saint who immigrated to Utah as a child from Tonga.
So much for religious and ethnic stereotypes about Utah.

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The mayor's efforts to revive commercial activity on Main Street, and balance the competing interests at The Gateway, have been less sure-footed. Here he could take a few pages from the campaign pledges of his opponents.
Frank Pignanelli's plan for Main Street makes good sense to us. He would create an aggressive economic development department at City Hall, offer small businesses help dealing with permits and the bureaucracy, and set up a revolving loan program for them. He would do more to help existing enterprises. We agree with him that spending millions of tax dollars to entice large retailers downtown would be wrongheaded. The city should referee a level playing field for business and let the private market work.

SNIP

Anderson and Pignanelli both have good credentials in minority relations, but Hola has not just talked the talk. He walks the walk every day.
Like Pignanelli, he points to the lack of retail stores as the No. 1 concern of West Side residents. Those Salt Lakers want a Wal-Mart, he says, and he suggests he would help them get it.
Hola is a dynamic personality who should have a bright future in Utah politics. But his platform is vague. In addition, he has never held public office, and we believe the mayor's job in the state's capital city is not the place to serve an apprenticeship. The city has just gone through that with Anderson.
The incumbent mayor has had four years to learn the ropes, and having some major bouts under his belt is another good reason to keep Rocky in the ring.

http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Oct/10052003/opinion/98453.asp

Might be key to say Anderson is a Democratic Socialist! ;-)