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Posted: 1:13 PM- If you own a television, you've probably seen the commercial of Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. at a Capitol press conference endorsing Utah's school voucher program facing a Nov. 6 referendum.
"Referendum 1 is important to me," says Huntsman, who signed the school voucher into law. "Smaller classrooms, more money in support of those classrooms. I think that's a pretty good deal."
What you don't see is the part of the press conference in which Huntsman tells Utahns it is OK to vote against vouchers.
"Whatever you think is right, whatever you can justify, is the right answer for you," Huntsman says in the portion vouchers supporters edited out.
The governor's "lukewarm" support for vouchers - he refuses to take time to tape a real commercial, saying he will not be used as a "poster boy" for the issue - puzzles political observers and has allowed him to be claimed as a champion by both sides.
Even after a week of his face popping up on TVs throughout the state in the pro-voucher ad, Huntsman seems ambivalent. When pressed at a recent news conference on whether he is uncomfortable being drafted as a spokesman for vouchers through careful video editing, his answer was less than satisfying to voucher supporters.
"I don't think there's much I can do about it," Huntsman says. "As a public person, you're out there, what you say is recorded and filmed."
Huntsman's spokeswoman Lisa Roskelley says the Governor's office did not approve the ad, but "The governor has said that anything in the public domain - people are welcome to use."
Leah Barker, a spokeswoman for Parents for Choice in Education, maintains Huntsman's office OK'd the spot. Pro voucher staffers were set up to tape the press conference that few people knew Huntsman planned to attend.
Polls consistently indicate a majority of Utahns will vote "against" vouchers. Supporters privately say the immensely popular governor's active support - Huntsman is particularly trusted on education issues - could turn the tide of defeat. But Roskelley says he has no plans to voluntarily tape a spot promoting vouchers.
At the same time, neither side wants to force the issue on Huntsman's tepid endorsements.
"We're 100 percent satisfied with Gov. Huntsman's support of vouchers," Parents for Choice spokeswoman Camden Hubbard says.
In a full-page ad in Salt Lake City daily newspapers this month, voucher advocates said, "Please join us in thanking Governor Huntsman and vote for Referendum 1 on November 6."
The day before, anti-voucher Utahns for Public Schools bought a full-page "open letter" to Huntsman:
"We commend you for statesmanship in staying out of the debate on Referendum 1. Your steadfast pledge to let the voters decide the issue on November 6 reminds Utahns of why we elected a public servant with an unwavering sense of duty."
Utahns for Public Schools spokeswoman Lisa Johnson says the group's affection for Huntsman remains even after he was commandeered by the opposition.
"We are pleased with what he has said in the past and with what he said in the press conference that wasn't in the commercial," Johnson says.
Theories on Huntsman's reluctance to come out more enthusiastically for vouchers vary. Did he make a deal to sign a voucher bill to get out of the 2004 GOP convention without a primary opponent?
Others think Huntsman, who will face re-election next year, is gracefully walking a tightrope between the GOP's right wing and the thousands of politically active Utah Education Association members who would be waiting in a general election.
Still others figure the governor, along with many other politicians who voted for vouchers, sense a referendum crash ahead and want to avoid getting sucked into an ugly fight in the waning days of the campaign. The various factions of the pro-voucher side have already tested a message that attempts to link the opposition to gay rights, and they've flooded airwaves with commercials tieing them to liberals like senators Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton and others that imply pro-voucher is the correct position for conservative, mostly Republican, Utahns.
"We have seen some dirty tactics. It's been a concern for a lot of people," says Utahns for Public Schools' Johnson. "I don't know if that played into the governor's decisions or not. I know it's been bothering a lot of voters."
Matthew Burbank, a University of Utah political scientist, says none of the theories completely explain Huntsman's "being very lukewarm on this voucher thing."
"It's a very peculiar circumstance. Clearly he is in favor of vouchers, he campaigned on it and signed the bill," Burbank says. "But he has gone out his way to say, 'I'm not getting involved in this.' It's still a puzzle to me why he has chosen this path."
Pandering to educators doesn't explain the behavior, he says, because Huntsman would remain popular with most teachers for his ongoing support of pay hikes and increases in school spending. "I don't see it as the entire explanation because he has no threat of being defeated for re-election."
As for the governor being splattered with rhetorical slime if he gets too close to the fray, Burbank says, "It's easy enough for any politician to distance themselves from those kind of [attack] ads."
Finally, the governor's strategy could be a result of a simple return-on-time calculation, Burbank says. Huntsman may sincerely support vouchers, but recognizes that a broad majority of the public is opposed to this bill. "He figures, 'If this is going down, so be it. I don't have to spend time campaigning for it.' "