Tuesday, September 2, 2008

A question with a simple answer


Salt Lake Tribune columnist Rebecca Walsh has an interesting article that asks the question why do Mormons voted Republican:

Walsh: GOP is the LDS addiction
By Rebecca Walsh

Harry Reid is realizing what Utah Democrats have known for a generation: The party of Roosevelt and Kennedy and Obama has a problem in the land of Brigham Young.

"It's hard for me to understand why [Utah is] such a Republican state," Reid said at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last week. "Utah should be a state that believes in what we stand for."

It should.

I'll just say what the Senate majority leader and member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints didn't: Why do most Utah Mormons vote Republican?

Democrats have been scratching their heads for years, trying to make sense of the paradox that has Reid so flummoxed: It seems counterintuitive that a state largely populated by compassionate, peaceful, faithful people who are admonished by their religious leaders to volunteer, give to the poor and live modestly and within their means should hang on the coattails of a political party that does not.

The disconnect is not just intellectual. This year, decades of Mormon Republican loyalty have been brushed aside. Evangelical voters in Iowa torpedoed Mitt Romney's campaign in January and hobbled the best chance for a white horse. Months after Mormon Republicans had worked through that disappointment, presidential nominee John McCain raised their hopes again when he tapped his former opponent to trundle across the country as his proxy, happily swiping at the Democrats. For the record, Romney has four houses - one less than John Kerry.

Utah Democratic Party leaders breathed a collective sigh of relief when McCain picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. But there's a gray cloud hanging over the Republican two-thirds of the state. The blogosphere is angry. Sarah who?

McCain has chewed on Reid's conundrum and figured it out. He doesn't need to massage Romney voters. Miffed as they are, Mormon Republicans still will flock to the Grand Old Party come November. A Dan Jones/KSL-TV poll late last week found that 53 percent of Utahns polled believe Romney would have been a better choice for vice president. But 58 percent still planned to vote for McCain.

Kirk Jowers, a Romney supporter, says Utahns will come around to the strategy behind McCain's pick. "I wouldn't think that this pick would cause Mormon Republicans to vote for Obama if they were otherwise inclined to vote for McCain," says Jowers, director of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics. If not, there's abortion, gay rights and affirmative action to fall back on as an excuse.

As they do every year, Utah Democrats are trying to chip away at the foregone conclusion.

"I'm a Democrat who is pro-life. I'm a Democrat who believes marriage is between a man and a woman. I'm a Democrat who believes you can keep your gun. And I'm a Democrat who believes that health care is a right," says Bennion Spencer, a candidate in Utah's 3rd Congressional District, painting the gaps between himself and Republican Jason Chaffetz.

It never seems to work.

Two years ago, Democratic congressional candidate Steve Olsen wrote a 15-page treatise on the topic: Why Most Utahns Are Democrats But Just Don't Know It Yet. It was a futile effort; the Mormon bishop still lost to Republican incumbent Rob Bishop.

This year, Spencer has tried a similar tack. He's written a book about how Jesus might vote, tracing political thought back to the Beatitudes. Rather than release the book before the election as Olsen did, Spencer will wait. He tries to explain his philosophy using secular words. "Our issues and our policies have to transcend partisanship," says the former TV reporter and international-relations teacher. "If we can get our message to people, they'll listen and they'll start processing. It becomes logical."

Well, I'll answer that question. It's simple. Jesus Christ is a Republican! A big business, war profiteer, conservative, eco-unfriendly Republican.


There....that's settled.