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SALT LAKE CITY — Call it single-track diplomacy. Or maybe just an excuse to take the campaign trail to higher ground. Two of the candidates to be Utah's next U.S. senator think the best place to discuss economic policy, energy goals and global affairs is in a pair of hiking boots.
The preferred town hall tactic for both the Republican and Democratic nominees vying to replace Sen. Mitt Romney is this: Pick a top problem facing the federal government, and instead of debating it on the stump, or online, take it to the steep climbs and vibrant fall colors of a mountain path.
Taking in the Beehive State's natural beauty makes it harder to focus on disagreements, the reasoning goes, and allows for long conversations about solutions that matter. Rep. John Curtis, a climate-minded conservative, and Caroline Gleich, a liberal green-energy lobbyist, have both made constituent nature walks a fixture of their Senate bids in an attempt to appeal across inter- and intra-partisan divides.
The Deseret News went on a hike with each candidate to pick their brains about what they see as the country's most concerning challenges and why they remain hopeful about America's future.
Why Congress needs to take a hike
Curtis chose to field questions on the Lake Mary Trail above Brighton Resort in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Curtis hosted his first hiking meet-and-greet on Mount Timpanogos the year following his election to represent Utah's 3rd Congressional District in 2017.
What has now become an annual tradition for Curtis started out as a way to help voters and activists understand his views as a fiscal conservative who prioritized clean air initiatives after he was elected mayor of Provo in 2010.
"I knew that we had tons in common and that if we would get out on a trail and just enjoy each other, the nature, that we would tend to focus more on what we had in common than what we differed on," Curtis said.
Curtis believes "everybody should have to be a mayor before they go to Congress." His time as Provo's chief executive taught him that most problems can be solved with one-on-one conversations, Curtis said. With his constituent hikes, Curtis has attempted to bring this ethos to the House and hopes to do the same in the Senate.
But this kind of face-time between lawmakers is becoming increasingly rare, he said. In its place, Curtis sees a growing temptation for elected officials to perform for a camera rather than cultivate relationships on Capitol Hill that lead to policy becoming law. If lawmakers take a stand against legislative leadership and catch the attention of social media and cable news, they are rewarded by a boost in small-dollar donations, Curtis said.
These incentives were all too apparent during the past legislative term when GOP representatives took turns torpedoing efforts to follow regular order in the spending process, Curtis said. The way he sees it, Congress will function more seriously if it takes a "Brighton hike" approach over a "cable news" approach to policymaking.
"Your ability to just talk frankly, and let your partisan walls down just a little bit is enhanced so dramatically," Curtis said. "Everything about the Washington, D.C., environment builds those walls up."
For Gleich, a first-time candidate with a background as a professional skier and climate activist, the problem underlying congressional malpractice is large donors, not small ones. While walking the Logan River Trail at Canyon Entrance Park, Gleich — herself a social media influencer — said lawmakers who are beholden to big-moneyed special interests are to blame for inaction on important issues.
"It's undemocratic that billionaires can put tens of millions of dollars into basically buying an election; and that's something I want to change," Gleich said. "Nobody's buying me."
Like Curtis, Gleich believes spending time in the outdoors can help candidates step beyond partisan pressures and communicate across ideological differences. Gleich is excited to see more athletes and brands "using their voices" to speak out on political topics. In her campaign, she has attempted to "mobilize the outdoor community" by taking voters on nature walks.
"When you sit down and go for a hike with someone, you realize we have a lot more in common than we realized," Gleich said.
