Highland • Jim Bennett says he was at a Kiwanis Club in Springville, campaigning as the candidate for the new United Utah Party, when a man said: “I really like what you’re saying, but I don’t like to vote for losers.”

Bennett responded that, maybe if he voted for him, he wouldn’t be a loser.

It’s all the “buts” that Bennett and the United Utah Party have to overcome if it wants to revolutionize the two-party system.

The United Utah Party was formed by Richard Davis, a Brigham Young University professor, who had been meeting with a group of disaffected Democrats and Republicans like Bennett. The aim was to line up candidates to run in 2018, a timeline that accelerated when Rep. Jason Chaffetz announced he was leaving the House.

They approached a few people, including, it turns out, Provo Mayor John Curtis, a former Democrat and the current 3rd District Republican front-runner, before Bennett decided to run himself.

Bennett — the son of Sen. Bob Bennett and grandson of Sen. Wallace Bennett — left the Republican Party after Donald Trump won the nomination and, in doing so, joined the more than 602,000 unaffiliated voters, 40 percent of voters statewide, who don’t align with any party. This is United Utah’s ideal hunting ground.



FILE - In this June 21, 2017, file photo, Jim Bennett arrives for a news conference at the federal courthouse in Salt Lake City. Bennett, the son of the late U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett, sued to get on the ballot with his new political party in the special election to fill the seat of outgoing U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah. Judge David Nuffer said in a hearing Friday, July 14, 2017, that he's not ready to rule on whether he'll order state officials to include Jim Bennett and his United Utah Party on the November ballot but he intends to make a decision soon. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

But (there’s the “but”), University of Utah political scientist James Curry, who studies political parties, says in the existing structure, politicians have to belong to a team — Republican or Democrat — to help them win elections and make policy.

It drives people to coalesce around one side or the other and has historically made it incredibly difficult for a third party to sprout. When they do arise, Curry says, they are usually driven by well-known figures with a lot of money, and quickly fizzle.

Bennett doesn’t fit that bill, but he told me at a (sparsely attended) town hall last week that there may be unique circumstances that give him hope.

He may not be wrong.

Nationally and in Utah there is deep polarization between Democrats and Republicans, a trench warfare that leaves moderates stuck in the crossfire and frustrated that their concerns aren’t being addressed.

The Utah Democratic Party, already too liberal for most Utahns, has been pushed further left by an influx of Bernie Sanders supporters, and the Republicans continue to be held hostage by conservative zealots demanding ideological purity.

Between those extremes is the daylight for a third party.

A Gallup poll last month found that 61 percent of Americans (including 77 percent of independents) believe the two major parties do such a poor job running the country that a third major party is needed — 21 points higher than when the question was first asked 14 years ago.

Last year, we saw how a third party could work in Utah, when Evan McMullin, completely unknown at the time, took the middle road between two wildly unpopular candidates and emerged with 21 percent of the vote.

And, in 1992, when Utahns hated Bill Clinton and President George H.W. Bush was campaigning with the distinct disadvantage of being George H.W. Bush, Ross Perot finished second with 27 percent.

But (there’s that word again), that’s presidential politics. To change Utah politics, a third party has to prove its legitimacy in state and local races, and Bennett is struggling to convince voters that supporting him is not a wasted vote.

He caught a bad break when Curtis won the Republican 3rd District primary against archconservative Chris Herrod, who would have driven off moderate voters in droves.

And Bennett’s campaign is run on a shoestring. Actually, it’s more like dental floss. While Curtis has spent close to $560,000 and Democrat Kathie Allen has somehow blown through more than $750,000, Bennett has spent a grand total of $8,771.

“I talked to a relative,” Bennett told me, “who I don’t want to embarrass, [he’s] fairly wealthy and I was hoping I could get his support, and he said, ‘Jim, I’ve been avoiding your call.’” His anonymous relative is a devout Republican and wasn’t going to pick family over his tribe.

It’s the Catch-22 an upstart faces: You have to be competitive for people to be willing to give money, and you have to have money to be competitive.

So, no, Bennett won’t win next week — he’s polling at 9 percent in October’s Salt Lake Tribune-Hinckley Institute of Politics poll with Curtis well in front.

This was largely a test run for the party, which is lining up a slate of candidates for 2018, and we all should hope it succeeds.

That’s because in public opinion and public policy, things aren't black and white, even though those are the choices we’re consistently stuck with.

But (and this “but” is more aspirational) if voters are given the option of blowing up that status quo and infusing more voices and viewpoints into our politics, that will restore some real representation and sanity to our government.