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Joe the plumber will skip Park City

by Jay Hamburger OF THE RECORD STAFF

Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, the man known as Joe the plumber, is not scheduled to make a Park City stop during a campaign swing through Utah on behalf of a Senate candidate.

When the Utah trip was announced in early October, campaign workers for Republican Cherilyn Eagar had indicated that there was a strong possibility that Wurzelbacher would visit Park City.

But an official with the Eagar campaign said a stop in Park City or surrounding Summit County did not fit into the itinerary. Rich Kuchinsky, a senior adviser to Eagar, said a Salt Lake City event with Wurzelbacher is convenient for people from Park City.

"We felt some counties were close enough to other venues," Kuchinsky said, explaining the decision to not visit Park City.

Wurzelbacher is scheduled to travel to Utah for a three-day trip starting Nov. 17. He has stops scheduled along the Wasatch Front as well as in Cache County, St. George, Cedar City, Richfield and Manti.

Kuchinsky said it was difficult to schedule stops elsewhere during the three days, but there has been interest from outlying areas.

"He’s been asked to come out to Vernal. He’s been asked to come down to Price," he said.

Kuchinsky said he expects "a lot of people" from the Park City area will attend a rally with Wurzelbacher scheduled at the Statehouse.

Another Eagar campaign official, David Kyle, had said earlier that there was a "definite possibility" that Wurzelbacher would visit Park City during the trip to Utah. Park City in recent years has drawn a series of top-tier political figures, including Barack Obama for a fund-raiser as he was seeking the Democratic nomination for the White House, and George W. Bush, who traveled to Park City for a fund-raiser for John McCain.

The leaders of Summit County’s political parties were unsure how successful Wurzelbacher would have been in Park City. The chairman of the local GOP, Henry Glasheen, had said county Republicans are more moderate than Wurzelbacher. The head of the Summit County Democratic Party, Glenn Wright, had said Wurzelbacher would not draw a big crowd locally.

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