Lampropoulos plans a return to politics in 2012

While you won't see his name on a ballot next year, Fred Lampropoulos says you have not heard the last of him in Utah political life.

Like many other Republican luminaries, Lampropoulos, who ran for governor in 2004, told the Deseret News on Monday that he will endorse Gov. Gary Herbert as the GOP nominee in 2010.

However, Lampropoulos said "I'm not done" with running for office here.

Come 2012, Lampropoulos, 60, said he'll look at the gubernatorial, U.S. Senate and U.S. House races before he makes a decision.

"Gary deserves a shot," at winning the governor's seat for himself, said Lampropoulos, the founder, chairman and CEO of Merit Medical, a firm that employs around 1,200 Utahns. Herbert, then lieutenant governor, became governor in August when former Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. resigned to become U.S. ambassador to China.

In 2004, Lampropoulos spent $1.6 million of his own money seeking the GOP nomination for governor. He was considered a frontrunner, but he failed to get out of the state convention that year.

Lampropoulos, known as a guy who'll take on a job if he thinks he can do something with it (he offered to step into the state GOP chairmanship several years ago, but backed out when the decks weren't cleared for him), said even if he could win the governorship in 2010, "there wouldn't be enough time to get anything done" before he'd have to run again for a full four-year term in 2012.

Dave Hansen ran Lampropoulos' campaign in 2004. Now Hansen is the chairman of the Utah Republican Party.

"I've never seen anyone who loves to campaign as much as Fred does," he said Monday. In 2004 Lampropoulos "was virtually unknown." But in the ensuing years he has worked hard in local business and political circles "and is now a household word in those areas," Hansen said.

Since 2004 Lampropoulos has spread donations around to dozens of state and national candidates and causes. From 2004 through August 2009, Merit Medical donated $327,450 to local candidates and political parties. Last year, either through Merit Medical or his own cash, Lampropoulos gave around $35,000 to the state GOP and $9,000 to the Democratic Party.

Should Lampropoulos run again "he'd have to be considered a very viable, strong candidate," Hansen said.

There could be an open governor's seat in 2012 (although Herbert says he'll run again if elected next year).

There could be an open U.S. Senate seat (although Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, says he'll run again then).

And it's almost certain that Utah will have a fourth U.S. House seat after the 2010 Census. That fourth seat would be an open seat — no incumbent.