Pour 'Em, Jon 

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A week from today, voters across Utah will saunter over to their local precinct, cast their vote and then begin the annual squawk about the damned bars and liquor stores being closed on Election Day. On the one day a year when a fellow very much needs a drink, he cannot purchase one. Not to mention that it occurs on the very same day that all those sober people go to vote and have nothing to fall back on.

We drunks have every excuse for voting the way we do, given that we had a tequila sunrise for breakfast, a bloody mary with brunch and a dirty martini with dinner—"dinner" being a stale bag of potato chips and a pickled egg. It's from our bar stool perches that we mock those sober people every Election Day, silly as they are to believe that voting while sober actually makes for a better election outcome. We're just a bunch of hopeless dummies at the bar stool, anyway.

Oops—oh, wait. What's that? We can drink on Election Day, and the liquor stores are open? Since when? A long time ago, you say? Really, now—what did we miss?

Well, for starters, this was a good and pleasant state to live in—a good country, too—back before 2008 when you couldn't buy booze on Election Day. But once drunk people began voting in large numbers, Trump came along, Mike Lee came along, oil prices went up, fish quit biting, reservoirs were drained, COVID came.

You name it—all the major plagues of the modern Utah era can be traced to the event of allowing drinkers to vote on Election Day. It's a traceable fact. We've had nothing but trouble since being welcomed to dine with Utah's elite—thank you very much, Jon Huntsman Jr.

Yep. He did it. No sooner did Huntsman become Utah's governor than he proclaimed that he would reach across the aisle to disenfranchised Democrats and independents to make them feel at home in his embracing style of leadership.

He was elected as Utah's governor in 2005, partially—or so goes the urban myth—due to this newspaper's fair treatment of him and of our portrayal of him as a good guy. Myself, our editors and writers—and, indeed, our readership—were enamored and thankful for a governor willing to cross the aisle.

Our election coverage that year featured Huntsman on the cover, drinking a tall one at Burt's Tiki Lounge—a tall glass of milk, that is. Inside that issue, candidates were given equal space to let our readership know where they stood on the issues of the day.

Huntsman good-naturedly allowed his photo to be taken. His opponent, Democrat Scott Matheson Jr., did not. Nor did Matheson even bother to answer any questions for that issue. His press aide at the time figured City Weekly wasn't worthy.

So, we did what we do. Not only did Huntsman get the cover—his words were printed uncontested. We left white space where Matheson's answers were intended to appear. Huntsman was seen as the cool guy, and Matheson as the grump.

Huntsman called after the election and asked to meet me. He came to the office shortly after in Levi's and vest—no jacket—sat in my office and said it was due to our coverage of him that he won his seat as governor.

I knew we had impact—a person working in the Matheson camp had already told us the worst mistake Matheson made in the campaign was ignoring City Weekly. Still, an accolade is an accolade. Huntsman told me he wanted to reform Utah liquor laws and asked my opinion of where to start and where to go.

Before he left office early to become ambassador to China, he had finally derailed Utah's archaic system of private clubs. He signed the bill at the New Yorker Club with myself and Tom Barberi present, thanking both of us for the prodding that led to Utah leaving the liquor law dark ages.

Those moves helped set the pace for what is now a booming economy in every Utah region—from increased tourism and increased liquor profits and liquor taxes to Salt Lake City (not Park City) having the most vibrant downtown in Utah. Other changes born of those first steps included the stage being set for additional beer breweries and the new licensing category of liquor distillers.

In the end, it was all for naught, however. Jon Huntsman Jr. gave hope to the many forlorn and forgotten Utahns that we wouldn't be forever bone crushed by the supermajority will of Utah's hypocritical Republicans. "If Huntsman can get the big boys to bend on liquor, he can do anything," was the former mantra.

Instead, he soon helped send Mike Lee to the U.S. Senate, where he doesn't belong. Lee is a pathetic senator, and Huntsman knows it. But he still went all-in with a recent, polarizing TV endorsement when he didn't need to. A simple statement—"I am voting for Mike Lee"—would have done the trick and not disgusted half of Utah.

Huntsman calculated that it was politically worth it to shuck his good name for Lee with a disingenuous intonation of Lee's alleged attributes that has enough holes in it to cause anyone prone to tropophobia to fall over dead. His math might include that he wants to stay in Donald Trump's good graces. That wouldn't surprise me.

Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to one of our clever beer brewers borrowing Huntsman's own words to mix up a batch of Unshakable Integrity Lager or a few barrels of Fidelity Sour Beer and, of course, some Principled Leadership IPA. If so, maybe Huntsman will join in for another photo-op. We've been his bar stool prop before, so why not?

Send comments to john@cityweekly.net.