Utah: Where U Come First

By Joel Stein

It was time I did my part for democracy. I knew it was time because I was stuck at the Republican Convention and people kept talking about doing stuff for democracy, and I'm a bit of a joiner. The problem is, I had no idea what to do. Then I heard American Samoa give the lamest preamble to casting its votes, listing the most generic virtues of its home whatever-you-call-that-nonstate-thing-they-are. I realized my country was calling me to punch up the 30 seconds when the states plug themselves. It seemed easier than voting.

I figured I'd help my home state of New Jersey. But the delegates informed me that Governor Christie Todd Whitman would be delivering the votes, and her speechwriters didn't need my help, which meant "New Jersey: we're not as bad as we smell" was going to go to waste.

Fortunately I ran into Vicki Varela, the deputy chief of staff to the Governor of Utah and chief floor whip, a title I found very sexy, especially since it meant she had one of the biggest radios in the room.

Vicki sent me to meet Utah Senator Orrin Hatch. "I'll probably say something about us having the greatest skiing on earth or the world's greatest choir," he said. We had a lot of work to do. My first idea, "Utah: the no-drinkin', no-gamblin', no-whinin' state" didn't go over well. And "Utah: our Olympic officials are as corrupt as anyone's" was summarily dismissed. But "Utah: home of that snotty Sundance Film Festival" pleased the Senator greatly. "Robert Redford is a liberal Democrat. What do you expect?" he said. And after we tried to come up with a line about the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Senator, afraid of seeming vulgar, wisely said, "I think we had better be careful about the choir." Someone was still feeling burned from bringing up the pubic hair on the Coke can during the Clarence Thomas hearings.

But Hatch decided not to give the speech and deputized Lieut. Governor Olene Walker. Recently Olene got pulled over by a police officer for speeding and not wearing a seat belt. She told him she'd been wearing her seat belt until she put on her panty hose. Olene was the kind of person I wanted to work with.

She liked both "Home of the perennially not-so-bad Utah Jazz" and "Utah: where U come first." And it seemed possible she'd use "where the water is as clean as our language." But the next night, just before she was to deliver her lines, she showed me her speech, which had been vetted by the Governor and Hatch. Full of platitudes about their education system, it was almost as dorky as North Dakota's bragging about having the country's "highest verbal and math SAT scores." I was hoping Montana would walk over and beat the crap out of North Dakota.

With only seconds left, I told Olene this was her opportunity to buck the political machine. She looked into the television cameras and stammered out her lines. About three-quarters of the way through, she said, "Utah: the only state that starts with U." Not quite what I'd written but close enough. She even got a small laugh. Overjoyed, I hugged Olene and nearly hugged Senator Hatch, until I remembered his name is Orrin. People may complain that this convention was overly scripted, but at least Utah was scripted by me.