Nice seeing Davis have to kiss this ultra right wingers ass, Matheson will win anyway.................................................................
After 5-Day Split, Merrill Cook Rejoins GOP
Merrill Cook -- the Republican-turned-independent-turned-Republi- can-turned-independent -- has switched again.
The former Utah congressman, an independent for five days, has decided to go back to being a Republican.
Cook, who is seeking to regain the 2nd Congressional District seat he lost last year to Democrat Jim Matheson, left the GOP on Tuesday, citing disrespect from a powerful Republican Party boss in Washington.
By Saturday, Cook and the GOP apparently had patched things up.
The Cook-GOP relationship, however, appears to be more about convenience than love.
In wooing Cook back to their side, Republicans told him his independent candidacy would split the conservative vote, almost ensuring a Matheson victory.
While Cook may not have a whole lot of warm fuzzies for the GOP right now, he has even less regard for the Democratic Party.
Cook's most-recent split from the GOP -- his first was in the late 1980s -- has been in the works for years. Republicans have been lukewarm in welcoming the often volatile Cook into their ranks. He was banned briefly in November 1998 from state Republican headquarters for swearing. A few months later, he threatened to return to independent status when he learned then-Salt Lake County Commissioner Mark Shurtleff was contemplating a run for the 2nd District.
In the 2000 Utah Republican primary, many GOP leaders, including some outside of Utah, backed GOP challenger Derek Smith, who defeated Cook but later lost the race to Matheson.
The proverbial "last straw" for Cook came Tuesday in Washington, when Rep. Tom Davis, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told reporters and fund-raisers that he hoped Cook would not run in 2002 because he could not win against Matheson.
Stung by those comments, which came about two weeks before Cook planned to hold a fund-raising dinner in Washington, Cook promptly kissed the Republican Party goodbye.
Cook later in the week reconciled with the party after Davis apologized to him by telephone and assured him he would not try to derail Cook's upcoming campaign for Congress.
"I will simply write off the deep unpleasantness of Mr. Davis' attack . . . as a nasty deed," said Cook. "I was very unhappy. I still am."
In agreeing not to run as an independent, Cook apparently also extracted a promise from Davis to show neutrality in the Utah GOP primary, or as Cook put it, "to let the people of Utah, and not the Washington power brokers, decide who should represent Utah."
Cook also said he hopes Davis, who was responsible for a series of unsuccessful attack ads against Matheson last year, will stay out of Utah GOP political strategy altogether.
In his bid to unseat Matheson, Cook first must face GOP challenger Winston Wilkinson, a Salt Lake County councilman who has been campaigning since the beginning of the year.
A perennially unsuccessful candidate, Cook first left the GOP in 1988 to run for governor as an independent. He lost.
He rejoined the GOP in 1996 and, after spending $866,000 of his own money, was elected to Congress. He was re-elected in 1998. ...
http://www.sltrib.com/10292001/utah/144156.htm
http:www.mydd.com/politics.htmlIN THE HEAT OF THE NOON, A MAN TAKES A SIESTA.
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