In politics, you’re either on-message or you’re losing. Let’s get to it.
Welcome to On Message, a weekly look at where the battle lines are drawn and who is winning the war of words.
This week… Fire and Water.
I mentioned a few weeks ago that the Cox administration was doing a good job of getting out ahead of the dire drought situation in our state.
The governor took the steps of cutting watering down to two days each week on state properties and is doing everything he can to use his bully pulpit to make it cool to have a brown lawn.
Practicing what he preaches, the gov has even proudly displayed the dry grass at the Capitol.
Other elected officials have done a good job of putting the water shortage front and center, including Speaker Brad Wilson, who published an op-ed in the Deseret News highlighting the shortage and encouraging all Utahns to do their part.
But water isn’t the only issue facing the state this summer. A dry June makes for a summer of high risk of fire and that comes at a particularly tricky point on the calendar.
A year ago, in the heart of the pandemic, Independence Day and Pioneer Day celebrations were canceled. From the release of the first COVID vaccine, elected officials including President Biden and Governor Cox have pointed to the 4th of July as the date we could all look forward to celebrating together.
Life got back to normal in Utah ahead of that schedule but now the dry conditions have pushed fireworks – and more specifically calls to ban fireworks – to the forefront. And that seems particularly unfortunate considering we all deserve to have a nice, traditional celebration after a rough 2020.
And that’s left a lot of politicians in the difficult position of either taking a stance that won’t sit well with a lot of constituents or finding a nice way to tell people something they don’t want to hear.
The governor, for his part, has banned fireworks anywhere he can and then pointed out that he doesn’t have the authority to do it without legislative approval.
Legislative leaders, few of whom want to ban fireworks, have taken steps to empower local officials to make the call.
And some mayors, like Salt Lake City’s Erin Mendenhall, have banned fireworks while others have opted not to do anything out of the ordinary.
So, what’s the lesson?
Sometimes you have to highlight the good of your decision and downplay the not-so-good.
There are people who want to governor to ban fireworks and there are people who would be outraged (it is 2021, after all).
So, he bans them where he can but doesn’t overreach. He can highlight that he did what he could but didn’t ignore the separation of powers.
The legislature can point out how much they value local control.
And local control (mayors) can do what’s best for their cities or at least ignore common sense at their own peril.
There’s not always a perfect message to get you out of a tough situation but, unless you are purposely doing something objectively wrong or evil, there is a way to highlight the good and ignore the not-so-good of your decisions.
It’s what we call, “spin.”
That’s it for this week.
More On Message in the next issue of the Utah Political Underground.
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