For the conspiracy theorists, here's something to worry about.

I think that Mitt Romney might make a run for president in 2008. If so, the first thing you'll read about him is that he's a "teetotaling Mormon." The link is about Harry Reid, who is LDS and now Senate Minority Leader. I guess it is possible to be a good Mormon and a Democrat, Utah politics notwithstanding. So is this now a Mormon cabal to control the government? It'll probably be painted that way at some point. There's an old prophecy attributed to Joseph Smith, but of uncertain provenance, that someday the Constitution will be preserved by the elders of the church when it is hanging by a thread. I don't think this is it. I've never been too fond of Senator Hatch, who is a reliable water-carrier for the Republicans, but not much else. I vote for him only because the Democrats here keep nominating welfare state liberals.

We've had Democrat representatives off and on for a long time, and I never felt they were too bad. The main thing was that they were beholden to the party. I really liked Bill Orton, but he got screwed by the Clinton administration when they announced a huge national monument in Southern Utah as a way to achieve wilderness without legislation as a payoff to environmentalists. They never breathed a word to Congressman Orton before the announcement. Clinton didn't even come to the state, because they knew Utahns would oppose it. He announced it at the Grand Canyon. And it cost Orton his seat. Our current rep is named Matheson. He's the son of a popular former Governor, and he runs as a Bush supporter. The Republicans keep nominating radical rightwingers against him, but he has part of Salt Lake County and all of Carbon County, a Democrat enclave, in his district, so he keeps winning because the Republicans haven't been successful at gerrymandering him out.