OGDEN - State Senate Democratic candidate Stuart Reid is raising questions about the possible involvement of a lobbyist in the campaign of his Republican opponent Ogden Police Chief Jon Greiner while also doing contract work for the city.At first blush, we confess we don't see the conflict. It seems to us that engaging in political activity for the campaign of the legislator who would best look after Emerald City interests is precisely what a lobbyist for the city is paid to do. Absent some showing that Mr. Jolley owes some special duty to Mr. Reid and/or his campaign, we're not sure we understand all the fuss. In the instant case, Mr. Greiner is the Republican candidate and Mr. Reid is the Democrat, so it seems facially-obvious to us that Mr. Greiner would be more effective in our Republican-dominated legislature, simply by virtue of his party affiliation.
Reid believes Rob Jolley, a Salt Lake City lobbyist who has a $45,000 contract with Ogden, is behind a push poll designed to hurt his election bid while raising campaign funds for Greiner.
The Web site of the National Council on Public Polls defines a push poll as one in which potential voters are provided false and damaging information about a candidate under the guise of taking a poll to see how this information affects voter preferences.
Those activities represent a conflict of interest, he said.
My complaint is that you've got an individual lobbying for the city and raising money for a worker for the city, and then going negative against me, said Reid, who worked as Ogden's community and economic development director before resigning last year to run his own consulting firm.
"He's helping get Jon Greiner elected to look after the city's interests." [Emphasis added.]
Notwithstanding the lack of readily-apparent merit in Mr. Reid's "conflict of interest" charges, however, all the named "players" seem to be distancing themselves from the subject. Candidate Greiner denies that Jolley is directly involved with his campaign at all. So says Mr. Jolley, too. Boss Godfrey, who is "friendly" with both of the candidates, is keeping his head down and denying involvement in "... in any of this stuff." Interestingly, other lobbyists and players seem to have differing stories.
Mr. Schwebke's report is also unclear as to whether fund-raising or "polling" involvement on Mr. Jolley's part (if any) relates to his employment by Emerald City, or to purely private political or business interests. So we're left to speculate about that. All-in-all, the situation is "muddy" at best, under the meager fact-set reported this morning by Ace Reporter Schwebke.
We'll note in passing (as we've noted before) that we do not approve of the tactic of push-polling. Unfortunately Mr. Schwebke provides no tangible information on the nature of the supposed "negative" or "damaging" information contained within this present instance of alleged quasi-polling. Whether there has occurred an unfair or illegal campaign tactic is a separate question; however Mr. Schwebke's article entirely fails to make that case. So aside from that unaddressed issue, we're having a hard time wrapping our brain around the purported "conflict of interest" problem.
Our minds are certainly not made up on this though, so we're throwing out this story for reader discussion. Let's allow the brilliant and gentle minds of our Weber County Forum readership to sort out the issues here, and to shed more light on the meaning of this story.
So what say our readers about all this? How about a few words from you, Mr. Reid?
