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August 05, 2011

Comments

Zyme

David, do you think that the Tea Party will eventually split off from the Republicans once it is strong enough?

What arguments indicate into and which ones against such a development?

David

Zyme, I don't see the Tea Party as forming a separate third party in the US. For now, the Tea Party OWNS the Republican Party - and has pushed it far to the right. And every Republican candidate for president except one (Huntsman, who has no chance) has pledged allegiance to the Tea Party.

For now, the Republican Party is happy to do the bidding of the Tea Party and its billionaire financial backers who call the shots.

Hattie

Having spent some time recently in more reactionary parts of the West (Eastern Washington, Eastern Oregon, Idaho) I can tell you a lot of the problem emanates from these places. The backward-looking people in these places have too much power in Washington, while the big urban states are underrepresented. They believe themselves to be defending the "real" American way of life, but it's just their version.
They deeply do not care what happens to cities, to minorities, to the poor. They feel they are lucky to have escaped "all that."

David

Hattie, I spent some time in southern Idaho and felt a strong Mormon presence there. Is that also the case in eastern Washington?

Hattie

David: The Mormons are EVERYWHERE in the west. They are a strong presence in Hawaii. They have a university here, and the East Hawaii Cultural Center, a major tourist trap on Oahu, is Mormon owned. The last mayor of Honolulu was a Mormon, and he tried and (luckily) failed to become governor in the last election. He is a buffed up Hawaiian guy named Mufi Hanneman who went to Harvard and is as phony as the proverbial three dollar bill.
I knew people in the east were not very aware of what Mormons are up to when Massachusetts elected a Mormon as governor. If they had known what we know out here about Mormons, they would not have done that.
I very much admire the Mormon environmentalist writer, Terry Tempest Williams, but otherwise I can't abide Mormonism. It's a religion of fools and opportunists.
There is plenty of material the net, if you care to inform yourself. Some poll I read avers that Mormons are, in spite of how well they think of themselves, the most unpopular religious sect in the U.S. I can well believe that!
I hope Romney is the Republican nominee, because he couldn't possibly win.

Brandon

"They have a university here, and the East Hawaii Cultural Center, a major tourist trap on Oahu, is Mormon owned. The last mayor of Honolulu was a Mormon, and he tried and (luckily) failed to become governor in the last election. He is a buffed up Hawaiian guy named Mufi Hanneman who went to Harvard and is as phony as the proverbial three dollar bill...."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYU-Hawaii

Actually, it's the Polynesian Cultural Center.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_Cultural_Center

Mufi Hannemann ran for Governor as a Democrat but lost in the primary to Neil Abercrombie. Mufi is of Samoan and German descent, and was Honolulu's first Samoan-American mayor. But he is the second Mormon to be mayor of Honolulu (Neal Blaisdell was the first).

According to Wikipedia, "Hawaii has the highest concentration of Latter-day Saints of U.S. states that do not border Utah."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints_in_Hawaii#See_also

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