Want a GOP office in Utah? Best get your glove on Mitt

It used to be Ronald Reagan.

Now it's Mitt Romney.

If you are a Republican trying to win an office in Utah, you want to stand next to Romney, the locally popular former head of the Salt Lake Winter Olympics.

More important, you want Romney's Utah fundraising ability.

Apparently, it doesn't get any better than a Mitt For Me endorsement — even if you only partly think you have it.

In the case of U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, he does have it — both the endorsement and fundraising.

Romney was in town a month ago for a "Bennett in 2010" event and official endorsement, which raised an estimated $225,000 for the senator's re-election effort next year.

And wasting no time, Bennett is now running a Romney TV endorsement ad that in 30 seconds has Romney saying three times that Bennett is a conservative.

In the case of Dave Hansen, well, he may not have an official endorsement.

But still, he tries.

"I don't have a letter of endorsement" from Romney, says Hansen, who is running for the state GOP chairmanship — the convention where state delegates will pick new party officers coming June 13.

"But (Romney) was sure willing to have his picture taken with me" at the recent Bennett fundraiser.

In one brochure Hansen sent to the 2,500 state GOP delegates, Hansen shakes Romney's hand.

Next to the Romney-Hansen picture is a shot of Hansen with the late President Ronald Reagan, taken back in the 1980s. Hansen doesn't claim in the brochure to have the endorsement of either man (kind of difficult to get a Reagan endorsement; he died in 2004).

Both Reagan and Romney are much loved in Utah, especially among party loyalists.

And especially when you are appealing to those traditionally conservative party insiders, it's smart politics to get as close as you can to either man — preferably both.

Former Salt Lake County Council member Steve Harmsen, who also seeks the state GOP chairmanship, doesn't have a picture of himself with Romney on his Web site. But in listing his qualifications, Harmsen does mention that he was a "campaign coordinator" for Mitt's father, the late George Romney, way back in 1968 when the elder Romney ran for president. So at least Harmsen gets a "Romney" name in his campaign material.

Still, says Hansen, endorsements don't mean as much in an intra-party race, like for party chairman, as they do in a general election.

"Endorsements (by popular incumbents or much-loved former party leaders) help," Hansen said Tuesday. But such endorsements are not as important to delegates, he adds.