Sunday edition: the future of the monarchy; The political landscape in Utah

[Music] from the ksl broadcast house this is sunday edition with doug wright and good morning and welcome to the program today it was a very historic week around the world as the longest reigning monarch in british history queen elizabeth ii died on thursday at the age of 96. now king charles iii takes the throne what does the queen's passing mean for the rest of the world and certainly the british people here to talk about the future of the monarchy is byu british literature professor and former head of the european studies nicholas mason professor welcome to

the program and what was your first blush to the images we saw and the words we heard from now the new king of england well just the the instant reaction is just how odd it sounds to be thinking about the king of england to be thinking about uh this moment when we'll be going from god save the queen which has been the case for pretty much all of our lives uh to god save the king and then just uh needing to take this figure of charles whom we've viewed in so many different ways for so

long and recast him in the kind of the mold of a king and and the gravitas that's associated with that um he certainly has been in training for it his entire life and he's uh learned from a true master of the art uh in his mother and uh so he seems uh off on the right foot at least before we talk about what is to be expected regarding the funeral in the coronation since we are so familiar with charles as the prince of wales now as charles iii the king of the uk what type of

image does he have there has not been a life without controversy and there is controversy now within the british family the royal family what what is he inheriting with his own reputation we know the shadow that he is in but in what condition is his image not especially high but uh by the same token not as low as it may have been 15 or 20 years ago surrounding diana's death and the aftermath from that uh part of the challenge he has is that there's not a great deal of natural warmth to him in ways that

we see especially with his son harry and to some extent with with william charles comes off as more austere his cause has not been helped by obviously by the sort of pr battles with diana which she tended to win but he also has a bit of a history of uh kind of throwing pointy elbows on particular uh hobby horses of his whether they be architectural or cultural or otherwise and so uh it's you know i i haven't looked at recent public opinion polls but i think it's safe to say that if the queen enjoyed 80

or 90 approval ratings in britain um his would probably be half of that he mentioned in the speech that he made on friday that he was going to miss i'm paraphrasing obviously but some of his his passionate interests and the various charities and causes that he has worked very very hard for you alluded to that in some cases he's had some sharpened elbows and he said that he was going to have to step away from that because he had other responsibilities when it comes to what he said in the actual speech what was your first

blush reaction to it was it kind of where it needed to be for the people of the uk uh i think so it seems that he obviously has a team around him and he probably was listening to some good uh pr people and he may also have learned again from a lifetime of preparing for this role of what what works and doesn't work i think i will assume that uh many people were particularly uh taken with his singling out harry and megan [Music] which uh seemed heartfelt and was obviously a nice gesture but um to

go back to his public persona many people including myself seemed to think that when megan and harry in their oprah interview were alluding to um racial bigotry in the palace that it seemed to be that that was directed towards charles and so there's there's a lot of work to be done there seems like many people who have served in high public office have relatives that they sometimes have to cope with and he certainly has his and he certainly has his own baggage to carry what about the stability of the monarch itself even under queen elizabeth

ii there were some rocks thrown at the monarchy how stable is it i think it uh it isn't going away anytime soon but it certainly is foreseeable that there could be a crisis uh either of their making or not of their making that could imperil it it is an anachronism um it's difficult to justify in many ways but by the same uh token it's it's quite easy to argue um economically that it's a big boost for the british is the face of their nation it's their brand and also just we see in the news coverage

since queen elizabeth's death that it is a genuine unifier in the country uh that i i i've thought for many years here in the united states how difficult it would be to select a fifth person for mount rushmore just you know some people would want obama if other people would want reagan and everyone would fight over it whereas the nonpartisan nature of the modern monarchy is such that it really can be this unifying force if handled properly and that's what elizabeth was such a master of professor we have just a second but if uh if

tradition holds here how quickly will we have a coronation the king alluded to the fact it'll be about a week until the queen's funeral by the time this airs it that may be firmed down but what about the coronation of charles iii but difficult to say as far as timing because 70 years have passed i mean one of the great revolutionary things about elizabeth's coronation is that it was the first that was televised well think about all that's changed even in those 70 years and the media spectacle that it will be um it used to

be historically that often times a couple of months would pass between the death of one monarch and the the coronation simply so the right people could show up in town um that's obviously less of an obstacle but i i'm sure uh out of respect and deference to his mother he likely would want some period of time to pass um in the name of decorum professor thank you for letting us tap into your expertise we appreciate you being a guest today on sunday edition and we'll be right back with a look at the latest political landscape

here in the state of utah and of course our u.s senate race here in the state is making headlines not only here but nationwide we'll talk about that with kirk jowers coming up next [Music] welcome back to the program and races around the state are heating up as we are now just two months from this year's midterm election one race of course that is catching headlines in utah and around the nation it's the senate race with independent evan mcmullen challenging gop senator mike lee joining me right now to talk about the political landscape here in

our great state is kirk jowers and you have a new title and i'm going to get it right here it's the ceo of add a x that's right addicts addicts overland i think it's going to be amazing we'll do a press release and and hopefully people like it but uh so is this breaking news that we're doing right here it is actually breaking news we haven't put a press release out yet so we're pretty new so you're very kind to do that but i'm here to talk politics exactly we've known each other a long time

and your time at the hinckley institute was just wonderful golden for us and i thought when we were talking about the overall landscape not even a particular race although we'll get into that but just kind of a gut feeling on this year's midterm i thought we got to talk to kirk jowers as you look around the country and here in the state of utah what is the vibe what is different this year and of course if you want to guess how things are going to go knock yourself out yeah it's a really interesting year back

in april and may republicans were supremely confident expecting that a 40-50 house pickup get enough of a senate lead that uh will one take back over the senate um but also have you know two or three uh comfort level uh and that was because joe biden was at historically low levels um with the exception of george w bush's uh first midterm election every president even the more popular ones like obama uh clinton lost massively in that first midterm so everything looked like a republican suite since that time we've had the january 6th hearings we've had

the abortion ruling we've had a few other things which have made it more difficult and so we are seeing all of those polls that we're showing a 30 40 50 60 seat pickup get closer to 10 20 seat pickup most people predict the republicans will take control of the house but it'll be very narrow and the senate is becoming more and more in doubt and as mitch mcconnell said to uh senator scott's great consternation a lot of that is also because we made uh you know some missed choices on our on our nominees we picked

less electable people more in the trump mode right than in the mode that could be elected and so the whole trump thing just really messes up predictions boy it seems to never go away does it it is always that factor either in the foreground or in the background it is there i am also i'm reading articles and and hearing stories about those deep republican wells of funding aren't as deep as people thought no democrats seem to be out fundraising republicans mostly across the board with some a few big exceptions and certainly at the national levels

that can kind of dump money when and where they want to um you know infamously uh mcconnell told a real wealthy guy i think it was in the ohio race you paid for him you know keep paying for him and he i think it was peter till you know the paypal founder said you know you've got to pay for this and we don't have the money to pay for it and yeah that's hosting it it is really interesting so all of those rosy unicorn and and rainbow hopes for republicans are now in question and you

know that's that's going to be the question does does this slide continue and biden has had the best month of his presidency and so now his approval ratings are still really low but they are moving up will they continue to move up and that will change uh some of the close elections if they keep going up i can't help but tap into your expertise uh we have in weeks past talked with the very candidates themselves yeah but since then uh there are new internal polls and both you and i know internal polls are kind of

unique animals but in early august senator lee had a poll that showed him 18 points up later in august evan mcmullen has a poll that shows him one point up and then the deseret news hinckley institute poll back in july showed it within five points that's a margin of error barely yeah but with mike lee ahead your thoughts uh oh you said the most important thing they are internal polls and you can make an internal poll say whatever you want um you know you you ask all of your the relatives and you might do pretty

well so there's there's ways to cook those that look objective um my feel and and this is worth not very much is that lee is probably up double figures if i had to bet everything on a margin right this second i would say it's about 11 to 13 points mcmullen continues to get a lot of interest outside of the state of utah i think just in the last 24 hours washington post and la times have done articles about him and about this race i think it's a race built for national media and political scientists right

right we want to know if there is a way to get rid of the further right and the further left i don't want to say you know any more inflammatory language about those candidates you know everyone thinks why can't we elect more of this 60 people want this but we always get the 20 on either side and we know why but mcmullen is that's his pitch is i'm i'm going to change that i'm going to get the moderate republicans moderate democrats and independents which is the majority and that's how we're going to win well kurt

i've left probably the most interesting and the easiest question to answer with about 15 seconds for the very end is donald trump going to run in 2024 i think he will declare at some point i don't think he will ultimately run well there you go kurt it's all it's always great to have you with us thanks so much for having me doug great to be back in the studio and kirk jower is now the ceo of add a x and that's breaking news let's take a break and we'll be right back with more we're going

to talk about a local race where they're going for the ride in stay with us and welcome back longtime davis county lawmaker steve handy says he's still running for office this november as a write-in candidate the six-term incumbent lost in the republican convention the nomination he lost it to trevor lee in march for district 16 utah house seat and here to talk about the write-in campaigns and steve handy's efforts to keep his seat is the associate dean for the university of utah's political science department matthew burbank and matthew thank you so much for joining us

and you know i was mentioning in our offer conversation there seems to be a real discrepancy as to what happens in the republican caucus convention system versus what happens in a republican primary first of all could you give us a little background and education on that yes so the the the difference really is um who's participating in those processes right so in the caucus convention system what you tend to see is that those are the people who are kind of most strongly dedicated to the party and generally kind of most ideological both on the democratic

side or the republican side but for republicans it's generally been more conservative members have been the ones who have served the delegates and been active in the caucus convention system and so that means that they often are looking for candidates who fit their profile um whereas if you look for example at the number of primaries that we've seen when and a lot of times we've seen differences between what happens in a caucus and what happens in the uh primary um what we see is that the voters don't necessarily take that same view right that they

tend to have it's a broader group of people who are participating and very often you get more moderate candidates professor i was really surprised honestly when steve handy did not go this route and often when i and i have known steve handy for years and years and years i couldn't possibly vote for him i'm not in the right district so i'm just sitting on the sidelines but often there are legislators and those who are elected that you kind of keep an eye on and you kind of go wow you know and but when i heard

that he wasn't going to get the signatures use sb 54 and so on i thought and you know you look at how many times i i think of for example john curtis in our federal delegation i think of governor herbert a while back in the convention if you had looked at what had happened in the convention go boy these candidates are in trouble and then it's just a total flip-flop where it's just a domination even landslide in the primary that's right i mean we've seen a number of cases where where again the the difficulty for

many uh particularly elected officials because again these are the people who have a track record and it's oftentimes that's what a delegates are sort of objecting to um but but when they get to a primary which is a broader group of republican voters and not simply the people who are kind of most ideological then what you often see is that the numbers look very different right so and that's a pattern i think that we've seen you know a number of times and governor herbert was one of those cases what makes this so unique since steve

decided not to go with sb 54 and get the signatures is he's kind of out in the cold but is he because a write-in is always possible there's still obligations there's still things you have to do right but the write-in candidate i i i'm trying to boot up anybody that i can remember being a right in canada wasn't joe lieberman once a write-in candidate in connecticut when he lost the nomination i think he ran as an independent but i don't think he was a writing right lisa murkowski did run his writing oh that's right that's

right write-ins it's so tricky are there are there going to be stickers do you have to hand write it in if you misspell it are you going to be out in the dark what happens here so i mean the the again the advantage that he has is number one he's an incumbent right so people know his name right and again he's got deep roots in in his legislative district and in that area having served in local government there as well as a state legislature so people know him right and and voters have voted for him

in the past and so he's got that as an advantage um he also has some resources right so he's got campaign funds and that's going to help as well right because that's one of the things you need if you're going to run a writing candidate is you have to let people know and you and that's that's the that's where there's an awful lot of work involved in terms of what happens i mean the other advantage he has in at least in a sense again writing candidates are always really difficult but the advantage he has is

because of the mail-in ballot right people have a chance to take a look at the ballot and say huh this isn't what i expected right maybe i better go do a little research and check into this and again you know he's got a website up he's got um he's got his his argument out there for why he should be a writing candidate and so that gives voters an opportunity to do that at their kitchen table instead of in a voting booth and so that sort of changes the dynamic in a way um and that you

know there's there are better chances i think there for being able to to participate um as a writing candidate in ways that you really can't when you're just relying on people to show up to the voting booth and know who to vote for right and again you know the reason we're talking about this is the anomaly you know news is what necessarily wasn't usual in happening and again i i racked my brain to think of anything in recent history certainly here in the state of utah that we could boot up on this so it's an

interesting topic it will be watched very very closely and as far as any indicators are you aware of any polls or anything like that out there that would indicate how this race is going no i haven't seen any polling that would look at those state legislative races and of course it's it's always uh difficult because uh again you know there are a number of people in that district who will vote for the person on the ballot who's who's a republican and you know and that's that works for them um but again i think there are

also a lot of voters who um are you know uh familiar with with representative handy and and can can say gee i'm a little surprised not to see his name on here right so what's going on and again if they do a little work they may well find that he's a writing candidate i so appreciate you joining us joining us thank you you're welcome matthew burbank with us here on sunday edition and thanks for being part of the program today we hope you'll join us again next week and music in the spoken word that's coming

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