Mayoral hopeful eschews labels

Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Jul 27, 2007 by Doug Smeath Deseret Morning News

Editor's note: The Deseret Morning News is running a series of profiles of announced candidates for Salt Lake City mayor. The newspaper continues that series today.

Third in a seven-part series.

Keith Christensen is fighting a battle of images in his campaign for Salt Lake City mayor, caught between the picture he paints of himself as an experienced business and civic leader and another image he's trying to shake -- Mormon and Republican -- that pundits see as a liability in Salt Lake City politics.

He used to be both Mormon and Republican. Now, he's neither.

The capital city has not elected a Republican mayor since Jake Garn in 1971. Christensen, a former Salt Lake City Council member, has long been a registered Republican, but earlier this month, he dropped the affiliation, declaring himself an independent. He's never held a partisan elected office and is backed both by Garn, a Republican and former U.S. senator, and Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson, a Democrat.

"Right now, there's only one thing those two guys agree on, and that's this mayoral race," Christensen said.

As for religious affiliation, surveys show that 54 percent of residents within the city do not identify themselves as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the last LDS mayor was Ted Wilson, elected in 1976. Christensen was raised LDS but says, "I'm not involved in the church today in what I would call an active way."

In dealing with the lingering effects of those erstwhile associations, Christensen brushes off his political and religious ties, and he and his supporters are quick to say the conventional wisdom doesn't apply for a man they see as an unconventional candidate.

"I'm the only candidate that has never been partisan," Christensen said. "I'm the only candidate that is not a political operative. I'm not claiming that I want to represent Democrats or Republicans. I want to represent both."

Christensen, 56, instead focuses on his experience. He served eight years on the City Council, from 1994 to 2002. He was an attorney from 1978 to 1988 but has made most of his money running Christensen Industries, a manufacturer of aircraft parts in Salt Lake City. He also owns 31 Top Stop convenience stores in Utah and Idaho with his business partner.

An aviation enthusiast who has been a pilot since age 16, Christensen is the current past chairman of the city's airport board and is a former chairman of the Utah Air Travel Commission.

"There are major differences between the candidates," Christensen said. "Some will say, 'Well, we've got great choices this year,' and I think they're nice people, but we're very different people."

He points to what he calls the "better-better-better campaign" he sees among other candidates.

"If I ask you, 'Do you think we ought to have better parks, better police, better fire' -- better, better, better -- is there any one of those questions you wouldn't answer in the affirmative?" he asked. "How do you get there? That's where I and the other candidates are going to start to separate."

If Christensen's campaign has a theme, it would probably be a phrase he regularly uses in discussing his efforts as a key player in helping bring the Olympics to Utah or light rail to the University of Utah: "It's not what to do, but how to do it."

Christensen emphasizes his business experience, but he stresses that he doesn't see the mayoral office as a purely managerial job.

"You also must have the vision of what Salt Lake can become in 25 or 50 years," he said.

His backers agree that he has that skill set.

"I've dealt with him in a number of different capacities and have always found him to be extremely bright, hard-working and a great manager," Anderson said. "He's got that vital quality of having a great work ethic, a lot of good experience and excellent judgment."

For his part, Garn also praises the experience, adding that Christensen would bring a different style to Salt Lake City governance.

"He's always got a straight answer," Garn said.

Christensen entered politics in 1993 -- on the Fourth of July. Councilman Don Hale, who was not running for reelection, visited Christensen's home and asked him to consider running to replace him in the Sugar House district.

The two sat on Christensen's porch, along with one or two other people Hale had brought along to help drive the point home. "They made it clear they wouldn't leave until I decided to run for City Council," Christensen said.

The next eight years, Christensen said, taught him a lot.

"When you serve people, you learn that if it's truly public service, the person in the position gets far more out of it than the people you're serving most often," he said.

But even as Christensen pushes a populist message, he carries another image: the money candidate.

In the most recent round of campaign finance reporting, Christensen had raised more than $500,000 in donations, more than double the amount collected by the second-place fund-raiser, Salt Lake County Councilwoman Jenny Wilson.