2 quiet assets in governor race

A typical day on the gubernatorial campaign trail finds Mary Kaye Huntsman at her husband's side, making small talk with voters.

Robyn Matheson is more likely to be working the phones at her husband's campaign headquarters.

The wives of Republican Jon Huntsman Jr. and Democrat Scott Matheson Jr. don't have official titles — yet. Come Election Day, though, one of the women will become Utah's first lady.

Neither sees the role as influencing the new administration. Just as they say they've done during the campaign, Huntsman and Matheson promised to leave the policy decisions up to their husbands.

"All I do is try to do my best, and stand beside Jon and be encouraging to him as my husband," Huntsman, 43, said. "I'm not the one running for office. I'm not going to get involved in policy. I never have. I kind of tune out in some of those meetings."

She said she does offer advice on "the human heart side. It's always about making sure the bottom line is about touching the human heart. To me, that's the most important thing in anything we do."

Matheson, 51, who has helped run several campaigns since beginning her political involvement as a volunteer during her late father-in-law's first race for governor, said this time around she's too busy managing the office to spend much time discussing issues.

"Somebody's got to keep track and make sure the place runs and the doors are opened and the computers are turned on. That's what I look after," Matheson said. Her husband, she said, "has a group of individuals he relies on, to bounce things off of, to talk to."

Huntsman, a Florida native who moved to Utah as a teenager, said her husband told her on their wedding day to be "ready for an exciting life, one filled with public service and helping others. I knew that's what we would be doing," she said.

That didn't include politics, though, until this race.

It did mean following her husband on his various government assignments, including a stint as the U.S. ambassador to Singapore. Huntsman remembers an earlier posting shortly after they married that took the couple to Taiwan for a year.

"I thought, I could either complain — we're going to go anyway — or I can go and make the best of it. It ended up being a great experience," Huntsman said. "If you have a positive attitude, you can get through anything."

That goes for the campaign, too. "We're making up for lost time," she said, noting when her husband served as a U.S. trade ambassador under President Bush, he was gone 200 days one year. "We've thoroughly enjoyed being together in the campaign."