Recently, I heard a news report that a vandal had burned an obscene word into the lawn of Taylor Oldroyd, chair of the Utah County Republican Party.  This kind of despicable act should have no place in politics.  That we will disagree, and sometimes strongly, is a given when we all have differing views about how government should work.  But there are appropriate ways to express disagreement.  

Just six weeks ago, Elder Quentin L. Cook spoke to this very topic in LDS General Conference.  He admonished Latter-day Saints to "be civil in our discourse and respectful in our interactions.  This is especially true when we disagree.  The Savior taught us to love even our enemies."  Elder Cook went on to say, in a prescient statement, that "violence and vandalism are not the answer to our disagreements."  

Since most of the people in this community are LDS, that counsel clearly is relevant to many people here.  To subscribe to principles of Christian behavior on Sunday, and then to abandon them when strong political differences arise, is not to hold to those principles at all.  Those of us who are LDS should look inside ourselves to see if we are making ideology more important than religious belief and practice.

It is a maxim in politics that incumbents have strong advantages over challengers. Two years ago our candidates faced incumbents in all but one race.  This year there are three open seats. There may be a fourth after the primary.  And we have strong candidates in each race.  We plan to take full advantage of these opportunities.

As we run strong candidates each year, Republican incumbents face tougher and tougher races. It won't be surprising if they begin to wonder whether it is worth it to have to run vigorous campaigns rather than the half-hearted efforts they were able to run in the past.

I watched the election results in the British general election this past week and thought of an election 13 years before.  I was in the U.K. during that election and watched as the Labour Party scored a huge electoral majority after having been shut out of government for 18 years. Now the Tory Party likely will regain  power.

The Utah County Republican Party held a convention last Saturday and, because it is dominated by a ideological fringe, reinforced its image as the extremist party in Utah County.  

The delegates re-nominated a group of legislators who, when not directed by the Eagle Forum, are following their own extreme right wing tendencies.  These include Chris Herrod, who was focusing on weakening child safety seat belt laws and got nearly all of his Utah County legislative colleagues to vote along with him; Becky Lockhart, who has proposed privatizing the state hospital in Provo; John Dougall, who believes poor people can live quite well on food stamps; Craig Frank, who didn't think the voters should have been able to decide the vouchers issue; and Brad Daw, who sponsored legislation to allow the government to snoop into your cell phone records and bank accounts without a warrant from a judge.  (Even the Eagle Forum thought that went too far!)

They also allowed two other non-incumbent extremists to go into primaries.  Joel Wright, who is the darling of the Eagle Forum and who wants to gut an already tight county government, is in a primary with Gary Anderson.  And Mike Thompson, former state representative from Orem who was defeated by Lorie Fowlke in 2004, also made it out of the convention.