2 setting sights on 2004

Election 2004 is some time away. But a few politicians are looking ahead with hope.

Two of those made some headway this fall: House Speaker Marty Stephens and Provo Mayor Lewis Billings.

Billings won a narrow victory this past week to a second, four-year term.

One reason, perhaps, that he received just 51 percent of the vote against a relatively unknown retired city firefighter is because Billings refused to promise that he would serve out all of his second term.

"I am not willing to say I would not pursue another opportunity if it arose," Billings told the newspaper earlier this year.

The mayor, a Republican who briefly headed President Bush's Utah campaign in 2000, left open the possibility that he could leave early if he ran and won the governorship in 2004. Had Billings lost his mayorship, his shot at the governor's race would have been severely harmed.

And Stephens, R-Farr West, lost a race at the National Conference of State Legislatures this summer that would have put him in line to head the national organization in three years. He lost, he said, because he wouldn't promise not to run for governor in three years.

Stephens' victory came on the money front. He held a relatively large fund-raiser in September that showed some political insiders he could be a contender for the state's top job.

"I've not made any decisions" about seeking higher office, said Stephens after his Sept. 19 event in the Little America Hotel.

Stephens hired the same professional GOP fund-raising team used by Gov. Mike Leavitt in his $250,000 yearly fund-raiser, the Governor's Spring Gala.

Stephens' dinner was a $175-per-plate/$1,500 per table event, which also drew a number of $5,000 "sponsors." The dinner featured a nationally known scholar on the U.S. Constitution and a giveaway of the man's new book. So many bought tickets Stephens had to order more books.

"We did better than expected, grossed $115,000," said the two-term speaker, who has a tough decision to make a year from now: Whether he will seek an unprecedented third, two-year term as leader of the Utah House.

Former Gov. Norm Bangerter ran from the speakership to win the 1984 governor's race. And Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, ran from the speakership to win his U.S. House seat in 1980. Stephens said Wednesday he's leaning toward seeking re-election from his Weber County district next year but has "not decided yet" whether to run for speaker again, if re-elected to the House.