Van Dam pedaling uphill in attempt to dethrone Bennett

The unexpected surge continued. "Then I had David Young, who was the great-great-grandson of Brigham Young, he kept telling me and everybody who would listen," Van Dam said. "I got tired of it and I said, 'Listen, my grandma's a direct descendant of Joseph Smith, and I think my Joseph Smith trumps your Brigham Young.' So, we didn't have that discussion anymore."

He also won that race — meaning, Bennett might not want to mention that he and his wife are grandchildren of LDS Church presidents Heber J. Grant (Bennett) and David O. McKay (his wife).

Van Dam also trailed by 36 points to two-term Republican incumbent David Wilkinson prior to the state attorney general's race. Plus, he was a Democrat, and a Democrat not named Matheson hadn't beaten a Republican in a statewide election in two decades.

"I didn't have a chance," he said.

He won anyway.

Van Dam also has a slew of court victories from his days as a prosecutor and a high-profile private attorney. His resume includes the first conviction of serial killer Ted Bundy — later, a phone call from Bundy to Van Dam led to a virtual admission of guilt as he guided authorities to the location of one of his Utah victims — and the prosecution of Ervil LeBaron.

Van Dam has deep roots in Utah, dating back to the 1860s when his ancestors settled in Salt Lake City from England and the Netherlands. Born and raised in Salt Lake City, Van Dam, whose father was an iron worker, graduated from East High School in 1955. His wife and then-classmate (their relationship sparked at a 45-year class reunion) recalls him bringing down the house with a legendary stage performance of "Good Ole Mountain Dew." He's played guitar and sung in some sort of band since then and even flirted with a music career. He also used to enjoy hunting and working on cars.

Van Dam supported himself during school working as a ranch hand on an Idaho farm, in restaurants, as a delivery driver, as an orderly at LDS Hospital and various other odd jobs. His least favorite employment was being a woman's shoe salesman.

Van Dam had two children with his first wife and gained three more when remarrying last year. He now has eight grandchildren, who can brag about their grandparents winning 12 gold and silver medals between them in biking competitions at the Huntsman Senior Games in St. George in 2002 and '03.

In between and around attorney jobs, Van Dam has spent plenty of time playing squash, poring through literature of all types (from murder mysteries to the intricacies of the body's metabolism), playing guitar in his country Western band and traveling the world (from China to South America to Holland, where he lived a few months in the late '90s after a divorce to brush up on the Dutch he learned on an LDS mission).

Van Dam acknowledges this might be his biggest challenge so far, though. But he isn't running to be a sacrificial lamb for the party. He believes things have gone haywire in the political system — partly because of politicians like Bennett — and he's determined to try to help fix them.

Van Dam, who didn't seek a second term after either of his elections, made his decision to re-enter the political realm in 2003 while on a six-month-long voyage in the Caribbean. He witnessed unsettling anti-American rallies filled with rancor. Once he returned and began researching and discovering why that vitriol existed against the United States (he blames George W. Bush), he said he "got bitten by the bug again."

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E-mail: jody@desnews.com