"He watches C-Span a lot. Sad, isn't it?" says Love.

Buhler understands that city residents have not elected a GOP mayor since former U.S. Sen. Jake Garn became mayor in 1971.

"I'm not running to be the Republican mayor," says Buhler of the officially nonpartisan race. "I'm running to be the mayor who happens to be a Republican."

But while Democratic Salt Lake County Councilwoman Jenny Wilson's mayoral logo has "Democrat" clearly visible, you won't find Buhler advertising that he's a Republican.

Buhler says he can bring back good relations with the GOP-dominated Legislature — whose members have liked to trade insults with Anderson.

All of the representatives and senators who represent Salt Lake City are Democrats, and Buhler says he personally knows all of them through his lobbying for higher education and gets along well with them.

Buhler gives an example where a bill on limiting how cities could give employee benefits passed the Utah House, but he was able to get it amended and killed in the Senate. He says the key is to work behind the scenes on those issues and to not lambaste legislators from the mayor's pulpit.

Still, partisan politics may well play a role in the mayor's race. Todd Taylor, executive director of the Utah Democratic Party, says if one of the mayoral finalists is a Republican, the state party will become involved in the race, publicly backing the Democrat.

However, not since Buhler in 1991 has a GOP candidate even made it out of the primary. The finalists since then have been two Democrats.

Even so, a Dan Jones & Associates survey this month of 400 Salt Lake City residents who said they were likely to vote showed Buhler in second place among the mayoral candidates, with the support of 19 percent of those polled. The same poll, though, showed that if Anderson decided to seek a third term as mayor, 24 percent of residents would vote for him.

Anderson has traveled nationally to call for impeaching President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Buhler said that while all candidates may have personal opinions about national issues such as the Iraqi war, abortion, national health care, mayors need to focus on their local budgets and bringing services to city residents.

Buhler has helped put together seven city budgets. There have been no general tax hikes, although over his objections, there was a hike in a special cell-phone tax and, with his approval, city water rates have steadily gone up as the city tries to raise money to repair old water lines.