Doug Fabrizio from RadioWest interviews gubernatorial candidate Peter Cooke at a Hinckley Forum. The Hinckley Forum Caucus Room was sparsely populated on Wednesday as Utah gubernatorial Democratic candidate Peter Cooke undertook a public discussion with moderator Doug Fabrizio. The argy-bargy centered largely on Cooke?s issues with Utah?s economy, education, environment and the historically Republican one-party control at the state government level.
Cooke, a retired two-star major general in the U.S. Army Reserve, member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and business owner, said although his background defies traditional party notions, it?s in the state?s best interest to allow candidates other than Republicans into office.
?Sorry to hear that people think I?m a Republican in Democrat clothing,? he said. ?I?m a conservative Democrat ? I represent a majority of the state who are fiscal conservatives. I?d love to sit down and work on changing those concepts.?
Tim Chambless, a professor of political science, said changing concepts is a good thing as we need to produce more competition between parties.
?It?s important to have dual-party inclusion,? Chambless said. ?We need to create more party competition. Competition is a good thing, whether in politics or business or dating. I?ve been to China ? I?ve seen single-party rule. It leads to corruption. If our democratic experiment is to work, we have to get more than just one party in the mix.?
Utah has been strongly praised for its pro-business, low-tax and low-government approach to job creation. The trouble for business is an absence of state intervention and the incentive of lower wages. Cooke?s campaign platform says this is illusory and misleading, though his talking points lacked a detailed response.
?We see this in the state at so many levels,? Cooke said in reference to frequently cited indicator of economic health used by Gov. Herbert?s administration. ?But they only look at the one indicator of jobs created. They don?t look at the number of jobs we?ve lost since 2008, or the poverty level, or the fact that we?re last in the nation in terms of money spent on education.?
Cooke claimed although Utah was 10th in job creation in the most recent poll, the state has still not created enough jobs to regain the 100,000 that were lost in 2008.
?When you take a spot look at the information, we look great,? he said. ?But I don?t see that we a have a plan, and as a businessman, I can say that that?s never a good situation to be in.?
Cooke?s biggest criticism of the current administration is a lack of economic planning at the state level. He emphasized the recent influx of lucrative out-of-state businesses setting up shop in Utah, including software developers EA Games and Adobe, is an indicator of negative progress rather than economic health.
?The goal [of the Herbert administration] is to entice businesses here with low wages,? Cooke said. ?We?re being sold for our cheap labor rather than bringing up the wages here and helping out small Utah businesses. We currently have no plan beyond that.?
While Gov. Herbert?s economic plan relies on bringing in businesses with friendly policies and initiatives, Cooke?s plan relies on a more complex system with a focus on education.
?You can?t be last in education and be first,? Cooke said. ?It?s like a businessman not putting their money into research and development. We need to increase spending on K-12, and make higher education more accessible and affordable.?
Cooke had few details about how this could be accomplished, but rather a broad platform of proper general practice.
?It would mean trying to incentivize local businesses to accept more direct involvement with college students, and it would mean taking some of the money we use to bring other businesses in and leveraging that to help small Utah businesses,? he said.
Fabrizio directly asked Cooke if his plan to increase education spending would necessitate raising taxes and he had few specifics to relate.
?Till I can get in there and see where the money is going and from where, I can?t say whether or not I would be able to just cut in one area to give to education or to raise taxes,? Cooke said.
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