Look for Leavitt to promote a unified GOP front

Gov. Mike Leavitt is in a primary. You can almost hear him say, "Ouch!"

While Leavitt doesn't want to talk specifically how he'll handle GOP political newcomer Glen Davis over the next month, he does say that he'll run an active primary campaign, using the June 27 election as an opportunity to define what he's done the last eight years and show Utahns his passion for the next four.That all makes sense.

But there's something else going on as well.

GOP legislators say Leavitt wants to form a uniform theme about where state government has been and where it is going. "He wants to work with us on a message this year," one said this week.

I don't know if this theme will be part of the primary campaign -- there are 15 House Republican primaries and two Senate Republican primaries -- or come later in the summer.

But if it is part of the primary, then Leavitt is very smart.

He was attacked from his party's right in the state GOP convention May 6 -- forced into a primary by unhappy Republican delegates, a good percentage of whom are right-wingers. And if he puts together a "unified" message for the primary with GOP leaders in the House and Senate, that puts a very different look to the issue. And not a good one for Davis, who is clearly running to Leavitt's right.

If Leavitt is seen literally standing next to GOP lawmakers -- some very conservative in their own right -- or figuratively next to them as he lists the "Republican" accomplishments over the past eight years in TV and radio ads, then rank-and-file Republican voters who may have had pause about Leavitt because of the convention will be reassured.

Kind of a "well, I guess he's not so liberal after all" thing going on.

While a number of GOP lawmakers may have had problems with some Leavitt stands in the past -- guns-out-of-schools-and-churches, wilderness or Internet sales taxes -- they are behind him now. That's because they realize he is the clear leader against Democrat Bill Orton and Davis is, well, unknown, underfunded, untested and untried.