What Sucking Up Won't Get You

[Politics] The 10 p.m. newscasts in Salt Lake City last night naturally led with results of the Iowa Caucuses.

KSL's Alex Cabrero pulled the fun assignment of dropping by all the parties (if you could call them that; Democrat Bill Richardson's "party" consisted of two couples sitting on two couches in a living room) at various Utah campaign headquarters for the presidential candidates.

Things were positively hopping at HQ for Democratic winner Barack Obama. It looked like a can of twentysomething sardines packed into Obama's west-side Salt Lake headquarters. I might add it was great to see some new, fresh faces--not the usual party hacks, political science professors and other talking heads to size up a candidate's performance. This may in fact be the political year when new, fresh and untried means something to voters. Of the entire lot, Obama symbolizes as much.

Most interesting was that Utah's adopted Republican son Mitt Romney, finishing a distant second to Mike Huckabee in Iowa, offered up no point people to chat with KSL. You can go here for Cabrero's slightly snarky characterization of the Romney outfit in Utah. A campaign spokesman curtly told him there would be no on-air comment from the Romney machine [ouch, we are all licking our wounds], thank you very much.

So, how's that for a big screw you from the Romney people, who have received nothing but constant slobbery wet kisses from KSL and really, the rest of the Utah mainstream media for at least a year now? Just shows where you might finish for all that sucking up: sitting on your hands at your 10 p.m. live shot, sans video of the guy (or at least his handlers) you were just certain would land on top. (Holly Mullen)