I primarily vote Green, but I'm still enough of an independent that a candidate has to earn my vote. That said, I'm still not sure how I'm going to vote in the senate race this year. While this post shouldn't be taken as an endorsement, I do want to point out what a great guy I think Pete Ashdown is, and why he's so much better than Orrin Hatch for the job.

I checked out Pete's campaign website  and his collabortive page to see where he stood on issues that are important to me. I really liked almost everything I saw, only disagreeing on a few issues. Pete, of course, has a great reputation in Salt Lake as a generous and ethical businessman. His company, xmission has been known to donate web services to non-profits, some of which I've been working with. His collabortive page is a unique tool and I believe shows how well he'd work with constituents when in office.

For those of us that like to blog or use the internet in a myriad ways, you may have heard about the danger the free and open internet is in right now -- Pete Ashdown is our best bet to keep the internet free and open.

It seems to me that Orrin Hatch has become too emeshed in Washington D.C. over the last 30 years and is out of touch with Utahns. He seems also to have forgotten what the constitution is about with his recent support of the Bush Administration spying on Americans, many of whom belong to peace groups that practice non-violence, making the spying more of a political game than a legitmate security strategy. Hatch has in fact stood by Bush's side on many of his Orwellian policies.

Orrin has become what he campaigned against in his first run for the senate. From Answers.com:

In 1976 in his first run for public office, he was elected to the United States Senate, defeating Democratic incumbent Frank Moss, a three-term incumbent. Among other issues, Hatch proposed creating term limits for Senators, saying that many Senators, including Moss, had lost touch with their constituents.

Find out what other bloggers think about Pete Ashdown today (to be update throughout the day):

Orbiter Dicta by Steve
SLC Spin
Signifying Nothing
Gary Thornock
One Utah
The Utah Amicus
Formaline
Utah Democrats
Innisfree
Jeremy's Jeremiad
Dee's 'Dotes
The Third Avenue
Bloglet
Foxy Starbuck
Picklewagon