|
The Democrats’ Hope in the Desert
Survey research shows that active Mormons are almost universally
Republican. And active Mormons who have been elected to Congress
have been mostly Republican. So there exists a fair amount of irony
in the fact that the highest-ranking congressional Mormon in history
is, guess what, a Democrat.
That would be Harry Reid, senator from Nevada, who is now
the highest-ranking Democrat in all of Washington.
The Dec. 13 edition of Time
Magazine contains a fascinating column
(you have to be a subscriber to read all of it) by Joe Klein
profiling the taciturn Nevada senator who has a lot of ties to Utah.
Klein notes that Reid has two large portraits in his office, one
of Andrew Jackson, the founder of the modern Democratic Party, and
the other of Mark Twain, “with his white suit, wild hair and mischievous
eye.”
Here are a couple of paragraphs from the column headlined “The
Democrats’ Hope in the Desert”:
“Then, about five minutes into his answer to my question, ‘Why
did you become a Mormon?’ Reid lets slip that he once got into a
fistfight with his father-in-law-to-be, an observant Jew who opposed
the marriage for religious reasons, and I realize how perfect both
portraits are. Reid’s story is Twainian, a western desert tall tale,
and his background is as brutal and hardscrabble as Jackson’s. ‘I
guess it’s no secret that both my parents drank heavily,’ he finally
says. ‘I didn’t learn my family values in Searchlight,’ he adds,
referring to the tiny Nevada mining town where his father committed
suicide and his mother washed laundry for the local brothels. ‘Mormons
were the most admirable people I met when I left home, and I guess
I was looking for some stability. I don’t like to talk about religion
much, but you asked.’
“It is one of the more delightful consequences of the recent election
that Democrats – now caricatured as the party of elite secularists
– find themselves led in the Senate by a pro-life, pro-gun, pro-war,
red-state convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
Matheson Improves Winning Margin
In his Tuesday e-mail column (sign
up here) National Journal’s Charlie Cook wraps
up some loose ends from the election and notes that Utah Rep. Jim
Matheson was one of a handful of “perennial Democratic targets”
in Republican states who saw their margins of victory actually improve
from 2002.
While Matheson will always be a Republican target and will always
attract strong opposition (unlike Utah’s Republican incumbent congressmen),
he has survived his most vulnerable elections (one after re-districting
and one with a popular GOP president at the top of the ballot).
He will be a lot tougher to knock off in the future (unless he gets
ambitious and runs against Sen. Orrin Hatch in 2006).
Cook also noted in the column that with the two House runoff elections
in Louisiana completed, the 2004 campaign is finally over, and Republicans
have picked up a net gain of three seats in the House for a 232-203
majority. The National Republican Congressional Committee raised
$175 million during the election cycle, while the Democratic Congressional
Campaign Committee raised $91 million.
Optical Illusion
Keep staring at the picture (about 8 seconds for your eyes to adjust)
and a giraffe will appear.
|
