Huntsman aided by cancer ads?

As if Republican gubernatorial candidate Jon Huntsman Jr. needed any more positive publicity, the Huntsman Cancer Institute — whose foundation Huntsman once managed — will end this week a series of TV ads in which well-known Utahns solicit donations for the institute and its new hospital.

The ads, again, put the Huntsman name out before potential voters just 60 days before the general election. Huntsman faces Democrat Scott Matheson Jr. on Nov. 2.

Obviously, since the ads ask citizens for money, they portray the hospital (which bears the candidate's family name) in a positive light, the institute's executive director, Dr. Stephen Prescott, said.

"Do advertisements or anything else with the Huntsman name on it help Jon Jr." in his run for governor? "I suppose so, if they are favorable," Prescott said.

But that is not the ads' purpose, Prescott stressed. The clear, obvious purpose is to raise money for the cancer institute and the new hospital, he said.

"And the ads have borne some fruit," he said. "There was no intent to support any political candidate."

Huntsman said he didn't know the ads were running.

"I'm too busy to watch TV," he said Monday, adding he had nothing to do with them.

Billionaire Jon Huntsman Sr., Huntsman's father, started the institute 11 years ago. The Huntsman family has pledged more than $200 million in support of the institute and hospital. The hospital, managed by the University of Utah Medical Center, opened in June, the much-publicized dedication coming the day before the June 22 primary in which Huntsman defeated fellow Republican Nolan Karras.

The U. issued bonds for the hospital, and the state has earmarked about $4 million a year in tobacco settlement funds to pay off that bond.

Before he left Utah to become a trade ambassador for President Bush in 2000, Huntsman was the Huntsman Cancer Institute foundation's president and CEO and oversaw fund-raising and other various foundation activities. Huntsman said after 2000, "I haven't had anything to do with foundation activities.

"Every year the foundation conducts some kind of public campaign — this year the theme just happened to be fund-raising" and the TV ads were just part of that, Huntsman said.

Neither Huntsman nor his philanthropist/industrialist father personally had anything to do with the ad campaign, Prescott said.

The ads feature four local civic, business and religious leaders, including NBA Jazz owner Larry H. Miller and H. David Burton, presiding bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"Some of those who participated in the ads would never do it if it was for political reasons," Prescott said.