Something About Ben

Did you read the Deseret News piece on Ben? If you're reading this post you probably have.

It's quite well done, but it tells a story now so familiar that it risks being trivialized. We read once again how Ben works with the political opposition and turns a demolition derby into a harmonious concert.

Somehow repetition only makes the miraculous seem predictable.

How does he do it? Well, you've read the stories about how he listens, really listens, to those who are opposed to something he hopes to achieve. Then that listening results in a synthesis that both can accept.

It all sounds like very patient sausage making, and I'm sure there's a lot of that in what he does. But there's more, and I've seen it happen.

There's something about Ben that makes people simply want to be the best version of themselves.

Sit with him sometime in a sky box at a baseball game. Watch the far right Senator from Kolob seek Ben out and begin to gab. He'll trade small talk, and he'll occasionally tick through the reasons why the word "Democrat" is simply a concise definition for socialism.

But there's an addendum, there's always an addendum. He'll tell Ben how he did something unpredictable, something progressive, something politically risky. It might be his support for the guest worker provision of an immigration bill, or a vote to save watershed from development, or working for a rider on an education bill that would reduce class size.

But it will be something, and he or she will end with that story. It's not an effort to say they're secretly a liberal, far from it. But somehow they need to believe Ben knows they'll do the right thing when their conscience obliges them to step beyond partisanship.

Simply put, there is something in Ben's personna that broadcasts decency, fairness and public service. If you're a politician, of whatever stripe, he's the person whose good opinion of you really matters.

In public life, Ben's friendship is the trophy you want on your mantle.