Cannon, Jacob agree to debates

OREM — The two candidates vying for the Republican nomination on the general-election ballot for Utah's 3rd Congressional District have agreed to face off at a series of debates.

Three debates with varying degrees of public access are scheduled before the June 27 primary between Chris Cannon and John Jacob, but the two campaigns are scrambling to nail down additional meetings in the state's hottest race for federal office.

Cannon is seeking a sixth term, but Jacob mounted an intraparty challenge in October and edged Cannon 52 percent to 48 in a vote of delegates at the state Republican convention earlier this month.

But Cannon had a 48-28 edge, with 25 percent undecided, in a poll of Utah County residents conducted two weeks ago for the Deseret Morning News and KSL-TV by Dan Jones & Associates.

So far, the only time voters are assured of a possibility of seeing Cannon and Jacob debate in person is at Utah Valley State College on June 10 in an event sponsored by UVSC and the non-partisan group Citizens' Resource.

"That's our whole objective, to get people to have more of a meet-the-candidate opportunity that's not always possible any more," said debate organizer Jessica Connors, director of Citizens' Resource. "It's easier to discern when you're in a room with someone."

Cannon and Jacob start their debate schedule today by meeting privately with the editorial board of the Daily Herald in Provo. The round-robin debate will be available to the public on the newspaper's Web site later this week, said Nathan Rathbun, Cannon's campaign manager.

The candidates also have agreed to a televised debate June 18 at 10 a.m. on KUTV Channel 2, with Rod Decker as moderator.

A fourth meeting, which would provide voters another opportunity to see the candidates together in person, is tentatively scheduled for June 19 at 7 p.m. at the Salt Lake City public library. That event would be sponsored and broadcast by KCPW but might conflict with Cannon's schedule in Congress because it is set for a Monday, when Cannon could be flying between Washington, D.C., and Utah.

The campaigns also are trying to arrange their schedules for a proposed debate on KSL radio's "Doug Wright Show" and a meeting on a public-access cable station serving Sevier and Sanpete counties.

The Cannon-Jacob debate at UVSC will be the first in an afternoon of political face-offs, all sponsored by Citizens' Resource.

"We've organized it so we can have back-to-back debates for every race that's on the ballot in Utah County," Connors said.