Stuart Reid is now reportedly claiming that a pair of election-eve mailers doomed his candidacy, due to false allegations; namely these:
• Reid supported the use of eminent domain to obtain private property for commercial purposes when he worked as Ogden's community and economic development director.Excuse us for asking, but wasn't Mr. Reid the Economic Development Director in the spring of 2005, the period when Boss Godfrey and his Emerald City Economic Development Department were madly scrambling to assemble properties for the downtown Wal-mart project? Wasn't the threat of eminent domain the "necessary tool" that city economic development officials were relying upon to pry property owners in the Wal-mart project area loose from their residential and business properties? Wasn't Reid one of the many Emerald City officials who cried their eyes out when Senator Bramble, and the majority of legislators on capital hill, abruptly removed the condemnation power from the city RDA's bag of tricks? Wasn't the restoration of the RDA power of eminent domain one of the projects that Mr. Reid had in mind when he threw his hat into the Senate 18 race? And now Reid seems to be suddenly implying that he wasn't in favor of the use of the power of eminent domain at the time?
• Reid's "political operatives" tried to steal votes by contacting the U.S. Office of Special Counsel to have Greiner disqualified for a federal Hatch Act violation.
And Utah Democratic Party Chairman Todd Taylor readily admits it was he who initiated the last minute Hatch Act complaint. If Reid doesn't consider the chairman of the party which put his name on the ballot a "political operative," we'd be hard put to find anyone else who would fit the description.
And of course Mr. Reid ignores the other political baggage he hauled into the Senate 18 race, such as his "secret" severance bonus, and his cushy $70 thousand/year "featherbed" BDO post-retirement management contract, which continues unto this very day. Citizens of both Weber and Davis counties were all well-aware of all of the above factors as Mr. Reid entered the Senate 18. All of these factors were widely reported in the media, well prior to the distribution of these mailers. Mr. Reid's candidacy was a non-starter from the very beginning, so far as we can see.
Somehow Mr. Reid's whining about a pair of "unnecessary" mailings has a mendacious ring to it, we think.
The truly odd component of this story, of course, is the fact that some well-heeled intermeddler (The Utah Republican Party[?]), outside Mr. Greiner's own campaign, ostensibly reached into its back pocket to the tune of $17 thousand, without so much as informing Mr. Greiner about it. This officious effort could easily have back-fired. Assuming the truth of the facts reported, Mr. Greiner is justifiably miffed. Utah voters have a notable aversion to late-campaign negativity, and these late mailings could very well have cost Greiner many votes.
If anyone should be whining here, it seems to us, it ought to be Mr. Greiner.
We think Mr. Reid should just "get over it;" and we say the same to the Standard-Examiner.
And what think our gentle readers? Isn't it time to move on?
Feel free to speak out on this topic; or start one of your own.
What's on our gentle readers' minds today?
