Thread: Salt Lake Tribute Endorses Cannon

Cannon in the 3rd: Incumbent deserves credit for facing issue
Tribune Editorial

Chris Cannon is on trial for his political life, not because he has done anything wrong but because he has tried to do something right.

The fact that the 3rd District congressman from Utah hasn't succeeded in solving the multi-layered problem of immigration cannot fairly be laid at Cannon's doorstep. Even John Jacob, who is trying to wrest the Republican nomination from Cannon in Tuesday's primary, admits immigration is a maddeningly complicated issue.

Jacob says he'll do better. It's just that, except for some fantasy of closing the U.S.-Mexico border at the snap of George W. Bush's fingers, he can't say how.

Cannon could have coasted to the sixth term he now seeks, and perhaps many more, by saying little and doing less about immigration. He could have stuck to important, dull - and often, in our judgment, wrong - positions on taxes, public lands and foreign wars, and basked in the warm glow of incumbency.

Instead, Cannon chose to face the problems of immigration head-on - or at least as head-on as anyone can in a culture where complex policy is debated by bumper-sticker minds.

So here's the sound bite: Cannon does not favor amnesty for illegal immigrants.

He does favor laws that recognize the truth of the millions of illegals who are here and the millions more who will be drawn here by market

forces without some change in policy. He has backed stronger border security, tamper-resistant ID cards for immigrants and, most important, legal and workable means for desired workers to either enter the United States temporarily or get in line for permanent residency or citizenship.

Widespread dissatisfaction, not so much with Cannon as with the intractability of the issue, was enough to earn Jacob a bare majority of the vote at the Republican state convention and force Tuesday's primary. A loss for the incumbent could be seen nationally as a grassroots revolt against reasonable immigration reforms.

But 3rd District Republicans should resist the temptation to Send a Message on Tuesday. They should instead vote to retain an experienced, serious congressman who, while too trusting of administration policy in Iraq and not sufficiently skeptical of big business positions on lawsuits and land use, deserves their nomination to face Democrat Christian Burridge in November.

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_3976876

Let's hope the Salt Lake Tribune is considered as highly liberal as most metro area newspapers. If that is the case, then an endorsement of Chris Cannon in a heavily Republican district could hurt Cannon badly.

W