I know. I know, squared. But things are rapidly changing re. where Hillary is going for her swing states and swing voters. She’s penned an Op-Ed for the Mormon-owned Deseret News.
And they published it: “Exclusive: Hillary Clinton: What I have in common with Utah leaders.”
Not to mentioned the WaPo picked up the story this morning: “Clinton speaks Mormon while Trump speaks nonsense.”
UPDATE: WaPo “Trump makes play for evangelicals by noting his problems in Mormon-rich Utah”
The New York real-estate developer told the [Florida] audience, a gathering of influential pastors hosted by the American Renewal Project, that they have a “chance to do something that will be earth-shaking” this fall. But they must ensure strong turnout at the polls, he said.
“You’ve got to get your people out to vote,” he said.
Trump called Utah “a different place” and asked whether anyone in the crowd was from the state.
“I didn’t think so,” he said. Some laughed.
I’ve been seemingly foolishly considering Utah might be a swing state this election for a few months. When Mitt Romney came out calling for votes to go to third-party candidates, that was yuuuge.
I’ll disclose here that I worked with Romney as security lead on the 2002 Winter Olympics website (Yes, in person he does look like a mannequin. No, he’s not quite entirely RNC-doing-business-as-usual, although he’s utterly Republican is his own weird way.)
I grew up in Michigan where his father was a Republican Governor seemingly for all the days of my youth in that otherwise hard Democratic Union-cleaving, state. So his father taught Mitt how to run as an “unusual” Republican in a state filled with Union Shop towns.
I also worked, after the previously mentioned job, for a company based out of Provo for over three years, and my manager and many of my security consultant co-workers were LDS. During that time I often traveled to BYU Country to work at our home office. And I had an insatiable appetite for Mormon history, culture and lore during those years. But I’m not LDS and the first to say curiosity is not culture, and I’m a passing ship in the night as far real knowledge of Mormon culture goes.
But when Mitt went off the Republican reservation (In Park City, just up the mountain-side from BYU) I had an idea what that might mean re. what the ruling body and the LDS President were thinking in this election: Mitt would never go public with a break from Trump unless the LDS leadership had approved this. Never. LDS leadership “trumps” GOP leadership with Romney.
It looks like Hillary sees the LDS demographic as worth courting. In her Deseret News (wholly owned news outlet for the Mormon church) Op-Ed (yeah, I still am reeling that they printed it) she says the following:
I’m running for president to make sure our country continues to live up to our founding principles. Those timeless ideas teach us that we’re stronger together when we work in unison to solve our problems, no matter what we look like, where we come from or how we pray.
That last one is important. As Americans, we hold fast to the belief that everyone has the right to worship however he or she sees fit.
I’ve been fighting to defend religious freedom for years. As secretary of state, I made it a cornerstone of our foreign policy to protect the rights of religious minorities around the world — from Coptic Christians in Egypt to Buddhists in Tibet. And along with Jon Huntsman, our then-ambassador in Beijing, I stood in solidarity with Chinese Christians facing persecution from their government.
We stood up for these oppressed communities because Americans know that democracy ceases to exist when a leader or ruling faction can impose a particular faith on everyone else.
...
Trump’s Muslim ban would undo centuries of American tradition and values. To this day, I wonder if he even understands the implications of his proposal. This policy would literally undo what made America great in the first place.
...
But you don’t have to take it from me. Listen to Mitt Romney, who said Trump “fired before aiming” when he decided a blanket religious ban was a solution to the threat of terrorism.
Oh. That is so very smart. Considering the LDS sensitivity regarding “religious persecution” she’s striking a very sensitive nerve here. And someone in her campaign obviously “speaks Mormon” enough to know this, which the WaPo pointed out this morning:
Eight hundred and one words in the Deseret News, Utah’s Mormon-owned newspaper, show the difference between a competent, respectful campaign and whatever Donald Trump is running.
In an op-ed published Wednesday, Hillary Clinton extended a hand to one of the most Republican voting blocs in the country — members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — as part of an audacious strategy to make inroads into some of the reddest states in the country. Her piece reflects a basic difference between her and her opponent. Clinton assumes everyone has interests and preferences that must be acknowledged and, hopefully, reconciled. Trump assumes everyone is shallow and manipulable.
Turns out she — or someone on her staff — speaks Mormon pretty well. It’s easy for non-members to get LDS lingo wrong. Mormons have wards, not parishes, sacrament meeting, not mass, stakes, not dioceses. Even non-members who should know better often have trouble, as when, in an early episode of HBO’s Big Love, Harry Dean Stanton mispronounces “Palmyra,” Joseph Smith’s home town in upstate New York.
I didn’t even see this coming...I just went from intuition on what Mitt breaking with the GOP candidate might mean. Which, until today, was a pretty wild extrapolation.
After the developments of the past 24-hours, I’m going to double-down on Utah (which has a lot of non-LDS) as a swing state for this election, with Romney being the decider for pushing the population over the top. Close, dead close, but possibly blue.
It could happen taking into account stay at home Republicans/3rd party defector Republicans/and the faithful voting in privacy for Hillary in the booth, plus the very important non-Mormon population.
For instance, take a look at these FiveThirtyEight polling results for Utah:
Notice the May Gravis and June SurveyUSA calls? Provocative.
I double “Big Dawg” promise I’ll be back the night of the election to eat Mountain crow if I’m wrong on this one.
But stranger things have happened this cycle.
Like Donald Trump.