Politicians offer strange mix of staying, leaving

What is it with some Utah politicians?

Our governors won't stay in office; our U.S. senators won't leave.

Like former Gov. Mike Leavitt before him, current Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. told voters that he would serve out his term. Yet just four months into that term Huntsman announces he'll resign to become ambassador to China.

Leavitt left in the fall of 2003 to become administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Meanwhile, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, is looking to run for a record-setting seventh, six-year term in 2012. And Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, told voters in 1992 that he would serve only two terms, but after winning his first re-election in 1998, Bennett reversed course, saying he'd keep on running. Bennett seeks a fourth term next year.

Both Huntsman and Leavitt were relatively young men when they jumped from the Governor's Mansion. Hatch and Bennett are in their 70s, and will be in their 80s if they win their re-elections and serve out their new terms.

What's so bad about the governor's office? I mean, you get a good salary — more than $100,000 a year. You get to live in a really fancy house. People with guns drive you around and guard your person. Unless you really screw up at your job, everyday citizens like you a lot (as seen in high poll numbers by both Leavitt and Huntsman). At some point you'll get a building or road named after you.

Yes, you have to deal with the Utah Legislature. And that's a down side to any job. But once elected you don't have to answer to some nutty or rude boss. You get to make speeches, see yourself on TV and get honorary degrees from universities. You probably get invited to the White House. You definitely get to go on neat "economic development" trips around the world. (Huntsman just got back from Israel.)

Still, our governors just keep leaving us. Huntsman is going half way around the world, no less. And with his departure we get Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert as governor. Now, Herbert is a nice man. He spent 16 years as a Utah County commissioner before Huntsman tapped him to be his running mate in 2004. So you know Herbert can get along with just about anyone — which you have to do if you are going to serve as a county leader in one of the most conservative places in America.

But Utahns don't know him. In a Monday poll conducted by Dan Jones & Associates for the Deseret News and KSL-TV, 54 percent of Utahns couldn't name their lieutenant governor. But nearly three-fourths said that whoever that guy is, he's qualified to be governor. That shows the kind of trust Utahns have in Huntsman.