Utah County Political Shtick

I sat down this weekend and did some initial investigation into the remaining candidates for the 3rd Congressional District. The results are disappointing. In the end, I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to vote for any of these people. That's a valid conclusion to come to, but a rather sad one as well. I have four candidates that I am considering, and four that I have eliminated from consideration. Candidates I Am Considering These candidates all have negatives, but I haven't eliminated them yet, nor have I distinguished which one I would prefer. Elimination may require more information, or simply some more thought. Joe Buchman : Libertarian. His vocal UFO enthusiasm makes it hard to take him seriously. Jason Christensen : Independent American Party. Inarticulate, and stumbling. He seems to have adopted an interest in the Constitution, but it is not clear that he has much depth of understanding. He does not appear to demonstrate good critical thinking ...

By current projections, John Curtis is expected to win the 2017 Republican primary in Utah. It is interesting to break down the votes by county. The New York Times put together an excellent interactive map of the election results. This is an excellent illustration of how urban centers differ from rural areas in their priorities. People living in urban centers tend to favor tax-and-spend big government politicians more than rural areas. This is exactly what we see in Utah here. It would be interesting to break this down by precinct. Now, John Curtis is no Barrack Obama, but he's no Rand Paul either. (Rand Paul endorsed Herrod .) The differences are stark enough to make it clear that Utah's love of the Constitution isn't great. Barring some extreme political disaster, John Curtis will win the general election, even though John Curtis does not deserve Utah's vote. I'm sorry that the Republican Party, despite their delegates' best efforts, couldn't rally ar...

Earlier this week I wrote a letter to the mayoral candidates in Payson, Utah. Frequently, when local elections are held, the low profile of the elections makes it difficult to get a clear picture of the candidates. So, in order to get the data I need to distinguish the candidates, I will email the candidates. I try to keep the letter to 4 questions, and, invariably, the responses (or lack thereof) tell me a lot about the candidates. Maybe it is just because my questions dovetail nicely with my way of thinking, but I tend to find that the responses I get are much more helpful than the responses I get from some of the blah questions politicians are frequently asked. Some of my questions are fairly standard, but I try to mix it up sometimes. Some common go-tos are "why are you running for [the position]", "if you are elected, how will you be able to act as a check against abuses perpetrated by [other branches of government]", "what role do you see citiz...

As I was doing my election research this week, I came across an op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune that made a couple of interesting allegation. The piece is very pro-Herrod, and it alleges two things that I found notable. Both allegations were new to me, and both play to my expectation that John Curtis is not a solid conservative. The first notable allegation was that an organization called Indivisible was organizing people to register disingenuous individuals as Republicans to vote for John Curtis, so that they could eliminate the more conservative candidates. This is a commonly reported tactic among social justice warriors and their ilk, so it is plausible. I really prefer primary sources over hear-say, however, so I went out looking for something better than an allegation in an op-ed. A quick search for "Indivisible Herrod" brought me to the Facebook page for "Utah Indivisible" where the first post was as follows: It feels kind of gross to be registered as a re...