Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., may hail from the East Coast, but he's got a Western ace accompanying his every step.

His wife, Jackie Clegg Dodd, is an Orem native who met her future husband during a Primary Children's Medical Center fund-raiser on the ski slopes of Park City 20 years ago, when she helped him down the mountain. Just as she first taught him how to ski, she has since helped him learn Western issues to the point that he is now earning standing ovations from Utah Democrats.

Those issues are important not only for his political career, she said, but for his personal life. If he does not understand them, it makes it very difficult to come visit her family.

Being a Democrat, however, has not hampered his relationship with the in-laws, she said.

"We get a little teasing from the Republican family members," she said at the Utah Democratic Party's state convention Saturday. "But they are also the ones cheering the loudest today, and they will be the first ones to jump party lines to vote for him."

Like her husband, she speaks about the presidential campaign with a large dose of optimism that even a mention of his low poll numbers or relatively small fund-raising numbers can't dampen. Instead, she points to the early primaries as a key to what she thinks will lead to his success.

"We find that a lot of people are open-minded about the candidates," she said. "They have their first choices, but they are willing to look at the other ones."

A big focus is Iowa, where the family — which includes 5-year-old Grace and 2-year-old Christina — just finished a weeklong bus tour. Unlike the candidates with bigger bankrolls, she said her husband is spending his money wisely and trying to spend a lot of time on the ground, talking to voters.

His message is starting catch voters' attention, something she thinks could happen even in Utah, the reddest of states.

"He's the type of guy who to know him is to like him," she said. "And in my case, to know him is to love him."

She said she comes from a strong pioneer heritage, and she has already started to sell Utah's outdoor beauty and Western ruggedness to her children. A graduate of Orem High School and Southern Utah State College (now Southern Utah University), she said she still considers Utah home.

"It's humbling to visit here, especially when your husband is running for president," she said. "But he's got the disposition to really bring people together."

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E-mail: jloftin@desnews.com