The Etch-A-Sketch candidate's now too hard to pin for Utah. |
Yesterday something extraordinary happened in Utah, a state that's not generally known for dramatic events. The Salt Lake Tribune, the state's largest paper, declined to endorse Mitt Romney, giving their nod instead to incumbent Barack Obama.
To put this in context, to give you a sense of the surprise this occasioned, this was rather like Soviet era Pravda failing to endorse the Politburos' pick; it was like L'Osservatore Romano taking issue with the Holy See.
It was unprecedented.
In Utah Mitt Romney is a known commodity, or rather he used to be, which was the paper's point in overlooking him this time it emerged.
'We have watched him morph into a friend of the far right, then tack toward the center with breathtaking aplomb,' the paper wrote. 'Through a pair of presidential debates, Romney’s domestic agenda remains bereft of detail and worthy of mistrust.'
'The president has earned a second term. Romney, in whatever guise, does not deserve a first,' they concluded.
Utah, as you know, is ground zero of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or the Mormons as they are known. But they simply don't like or trust this 'shape-shifting nominee.'
Before the nation embraces what Obama has called the 'sketchy deal' Romney is offering, which include more tax breaks for the wealthy that Romeny won't commit himself to paying for, voters need to ask themselves a simple question. It's a question the board at The Salt Like Tribune put like this: ‘Who is this guy, really, and what in the world does he truly believe?’
Utah is a dependably red state so the surprise of this non-endorsement for the GOP pick can not be underemphasized. There's little doubt that the Mormon Governor will carry the state so the decision by the board must truly rankle him.
How could this have happened?
It happened because the state that thought they knew him have finally decided they never knew him at all. 'Politicians routinely tailor their words to suit an audience. Romney, though, is shameless, lavishing vastly diverse audiences with words, any words, they would trade their votes to hear,' the paper wrote.
Shameless, pandering, opportunistic and quite simply unbelievable. They may still vote for him, but like the rest of the nation they no longer seem to know who they'll be voting for.
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