Corroon Picks Republican Sheryl Allen as Running Mate
By Jeremiah Stettler
Salt Lake Tribune
The best way to beat a Republican? Recruit one.
Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Peter Corroon is betting on that strategy after picking a running mate from the state’s dominant party — a rare political move that he hopes will appeal to independents and moderates as he chases the state’s highest seat.
The Salt Lake County mayor, who trails Republican incumbent Gary Herbert by 31 percentage points in the latest Salt Lake Tribune poll, named Rep. Sheryl Allen, R-Bountiful, on Monday to run as his lieutenant governor.
It’s a bipartisan duo — unlike anything Utah has seen since the Scott Matheson administration a quarter-century ago — that Corroon hopes will usher in a new era of two-party cooperation in the Beehive State and break the GOP’s 25-year lock on the governor’s chair.
Very good choice. Ever since he got into politics Peter Corroon has carefully and thoughtfully made good choices, not only politically, but balanced and with common sense. He is a true non-ideologue. He evaluates the issues and makes common sense decisions based on the facts.
Sheryl Allen has never been a go-along-to-get-along Republican. Republican, yes, Republican, but with a strong enough backbone to withstand the eye-popping craziness of the right wing ideologues. She has stood against them time and again, and although suffering retributive backlash from the crazies, the moderates have admired her and she got re-elected to her legislative seat on a regular basis from a conservative Davis County district.
She supported ethics reform against the wishes of her party leaders, stood independent of them on charter schools, and sponsored a bill to ban the firing squad.
He also hopes it will give him a much-needed political boost in one of the nation’s reddest states.
“The parties are leaving the citizens behind,” Corroon declared outside Salt Lake City’s Washington Elementary. “They are leaving the moderate representatives behind. That is why we believe in bipartisan government.”
Although Corroon denied that party affiliation had anything to do with his pick — “I didn’t look at a person because of their sex or political party,” he insisted, “I looked at the person I thought would be the best candidate” — political observers described it as a “good gamble” to reach out to independents and conservatives not accustomed to voting Democratic.
Allen is a lifelong Davis County Republican who chose not to seek re-election this year after serving 16 years in the Utah House. She is viewed as a moderate who co-founded the Reagan Caucus for middle-of-the-road GOP members.
On Monday, Allen shrugged off the potential for political fallout from within her own party for joining the Democratic ticket.
“I really want to preach the gospel of bipartisanship,” she said, “that cooperation is more important than party politics. Utah needs to come first. I hope that becomes the trend across the nation.”
Question is, will Corroon profit politically by having a Republican on his ticket?
Probably. Although it is not a game changer, according to Kelly Patterson, a political scientist at Brigham Young University, it could improve Corroon’s chances by sending a “signal to moderate Republicans that it is OK to cross over party lines and vote for him.”
Corroon, himself seen as moderate, could use the help. The Tribune poll showed him down by more than 30 percentage points and a recent Deseret News survey put him behind by 20 percentage points.
Those double-digit leads give Herbert — and his No. 2, Greg Bell, a former state senator from Davis County — a healthy head start, especially for a first-year governor who inherited the job last fall when his predecessor, Jon Huntsman Jr., became President Barack Obama’s ambassador to China.
Utah Democratic Party Chairman Wayne Holland predicts widespread acceptance of Allen within the party. He described her as “esteemed” by Utah’s left for her approach to education, economic development and ethics reform.
On education, Allen earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from the University of Utah, served for 12 years on the Davis Board of Education and worked professionally as an elementary teacher, curriculum writer and, most recently, as a special-projects director for the Davis School District.
On economic development, she is co-chairwoman of the Utah International Trade Commission and the Utah Economic Development and Revenue Appropriations Committee.
On ethics, she pushed for reform, involving herself closely with an ethics complaint filed against Rep. Greg Hughes, R-Draper. The House Ethics Committee dismissed the charges.
Despite her moderate views, Allen insisted Monday that she remains Republican, although she plans to attend Saturday’s Utah Democratic Convention.
“I’m not coming out of the closet,” she said. “I’m still Republican. But I am a Republican who likes to cross the aisle — always have been, always will be. That is how you solve problems. I would love it if Washington would do that more often.”
But running alongside a Democrat could make it “tough” for Allen to chase another political office as a Republican, warned Utah GOP Chairman Dave Hansen.
That said, Hansen doubts Allen’s candidacy will have much impact on the outcome. The race will be more about the job performance of Utah’s current governor — not so much about Corroon’s choice for a running mate.
Hansen characterized Monday’s announcement as a short-term attention-getter for a long-shot Democrat.
“When you are that far behind in the polls, you have to think about cutesy things to do to get some attention,” he said. “Putting a Republican on the ticket, that is something that will get attention for a couple days.”
Michael Lyons, a political scientist at Utah State University, said the selection of a running mate seldom has much impact. However, he suspects having Allen on the ticket could force Herbert to run a more centrist campaign.
“It puts pressure on the governor,” Lyons said, “to distance himself from the tea party movement and the ideologically conservative wing of the Republican Party.”
Herbert’s campaign manager, Joseph Demma, maintains the governor will run the same campaign even with a Republican on the other ticket. The governor’s vision for the state, he said, doesn’t change because Allen is in the race.
But Democrats hope Allen will help snatch the governor’s seat altogether. Party insiders, such as Holland, point to successful Democratic races in other red states that employed the same formula.
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius won office by looking outside their Democratic ranks for running mates.
If Corroon succeeds similarly, his administration would represent a political rarity in Utah. Not since 1985 have Republicans and Democrats shared the state’s two highest offices — Matheson as governor and David Monson as lieutenant governor — and even then, the governor and lieutenant governor ran on separate tickets.