McCullough eyes attorney general post

His campaign office is located above Dr. John's lingerie shop. You'll be able to pick up bumper stickers and other campaign literature at a strip club.

Andrew McCullough is running for Utah attorney general.

"I'd like to take one more shot and be as serious as I can, with a legitimate campaign purse," the Libertarian candidate told the Deseret Morning News on Wednesday. "It won't be anything like the other candidates have, but it will hopefully allow me a chance to say something. I'm the voice of dissent in Utah."

McCullough has been knocked over many times before by the election juggernaut of Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, a Republican. As a third-party candidate, he has barely showed up in the polls against Shurtleff, who remains immensely popular. But lately, it seems, Libertarian candidates have been getting more notice, and McCullough hopes to capitalize on that.

"What I think I can do is change the tenor of the debate and give an opportunity to express an alternative point of view," he said.

Throughout his career, McCullough has represented the alternative point-of-view. A Brigham Young University graduate who got his law degree from the University of Utah, he has built a reputation for challenging cities' sexually oriented business ordinances and defending strip clubs.

"You can look at it as 'Andy represents the sleazy' or you can look at it as 'Andy fights for free speech,"' he quipped.

McCullough said he wants to make fighting the Patriot Act a part of his campaign theme.

On his campaign blog, McCullough has criticized Shurtleff for his stances on polygamy, pornography, search and seizure, and support of the Bush administration. He accused the Democratic Party of putting up a "sacrificial lamb" in the race with their candidate, former assistant attorney general Jean Hill.

McCullough has held unusual campaign fundraisers, including one at a strip club. As a third-party candidate, he said he will do what it takes to get people to notice he's running for office.

"If they say, 'I don't like what he stands for,' that's fine. If 'sleazy' gets me publicity sometimes, so be it," he said, before deadpanning: "I will never get as much publicity as our governor candidate ('Superdell' Schanze)."

---

E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com