Maybe loss was just in cards

Perhaps this race was never in the cards for Frank Pignanelli to win. Or maybe if your opponent plays the "religious" card in multidenominational Salt Lake City, no one can defeat him.

Those were just a few of the conclusions reached in the Monday-morning quarterbacking analysis by Salt Lake mayoral candidate Pignanelli's top advisers a couple of days after the former Democratic legislator lost to Mayor Rocky Anderson, 54-46 percent.

Around the table were Pignanelli; his wife, D'Arcy Dixon Pignanelli; his campaign manager, Dallis Nordstrom; and campaign chairman Dave Jones, who himself was knocked out of Salt Lake mayoral primaries in 1991 and 1999 by small margins.

"I hate to bring it up," said Pignanelli, but it looks like there "is a dynamic at work" in major Salt Lake City races: If a well-financed opponent plays to certain groups in a Salt Lake election, an underfinanced challenger may not have a real shot at unseating him.

If the incumbent is a "religious bigot," throws in Nordstrom.

Is that what happened in this race?

"I don't know," said Pignanelli. "That comment at the Hinckley Institute" . . . Anderson said in an exchange in the University of Utah program that some City Council members couldn't have voted to allow the Nordstrom department store to move to The Gateway project from Crossroads Mall, recently purchased by the LDS Church, because they are active Mormons. The comment "was maybe made to solidify his base" of non-Mormon, liberal voters, the Pignanelli observers said.

"We tried very hard to run a race where people wanted to vote for something, vote for me. We didn't want to give reasons for people to vote against (Anderson), although some probably did," said Pignanelli.

Fallout ahead?

The Pignanelli group said that while the 2003 mayor's race between two loyal Democrats likely won't see intra-party scars or rifts running into the 2004 general elections, in which the Democratic Party hopes to win the governorship with Scott Matheson Jr. and hold on to Rep. Jim Matheson's 2nd Congressional District. Anderson could become Public Enemy No. 1 in Republican eyes next year.

"The Democratic Party's own polling shows Anderson is the poster boy for the party, seen as its leader," said Nordstrom. "And I think (Anderson) could really hurt the party" in the 2004 elections, especially if he's involved in high-profile, disruptive issues next year.