Babka fires away at Cannon

OREM — Utah Congressman Chris Cannon 's working celebration of his Republican primary victory didn't last long.

Democrat Beau Babka opened his campaign against Cannon with a strong salvo Wednesday morning, at the same time Cannon was in committee hearings in Washington and less than 12 hours after Matt Throckmorton conceded the Republican nomination to Cannon. Cannon won the primary with 58 percent of the vote.

Babka first congratulated Cannon on the victory during his speech at Salt Lake Community College but then said, "I would, however, like to point out that forcing an incumbent to compete in a primary is an indication that many within Chris Cannon's own party think it's time for a change. I am standing here today, because I think so too."

He went on to call Cannon "out of touch" and criticized the four-term congressman as doing an "abysmal job of improving the education for his home state."

Babka clearly didn't want to waste any time establishing his candidacy against an incumbent with less than five months —133 days — until the Nov. 2 election. Cannon has won easily in this last three general election races, finishing with 67, 59 and 77 percent of the vote.

In fact, Cannon held a similar lead on Babka in a Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll conducted May 10-13 by Dan Jones & Associates. The survey of 3rd District residents found that 61 percent would have voted for Cannon at the time and 19 percent would have voted for Babka.

The poll had a margin of error of 5.5 percent.

Babka said Cannon "has sat idly by as Utah has become the worst state in the country in terms of per-student spending. This kind of educational leadership will result in nothing short of all of our children being left behind."

He attacked Cannon for what he called Republicans' failure to create a single comprehensive database of suspected terrorists.

Babka also said Utah has lost more than 15,000 manufacturing jobs during Cannon's eight years in Congress, and that an additional 19,000 Utahns became unemployed while the state's unemployment rose by 40 percent.

Babka is a captain with the South Salt Lake Police Department and an adjutant professor at Salt Lake Community College.

"People will understand this is a regular guy in a regular situation who wants to represent the regular people of the 3rd Congressional District," he said.

He ran for Salt Lake County sheriff in 2002 and earned 45 percent — 98,480 votes — against a three-term incumbent Republican, which Cannon's staff took as a sign Babka could become a serious challenger, despite the apparent early lead.