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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Three GOP candidates hoping to replace former Rep. Jason Chaffetz in Congress faced off Tuesday in a primary election after weeks trying to burnish their conservative credentials and fend off attack ads from deep-pocketed outside groups.

Chaffetz abruptly stepped down from his seat in June after making a name for himself as the Republican who relentlessly investigated Hillary Clinton and her emails while he was chairman of the House Oversight Committee.

His departure opened up a congressional seat in a district where Republicans outnumber Democrats five-to-one, offering voters and donors a choice between three candidates emblematic of the divisions roiling the GOP under President Donald Trump.

Moderate Utah Republicans have backed a popular mayor, John Curtis, who was once a Democrat and said he had strong moral concerns that kept him from voting for Trump.

Those further to the right have split their support behind Chris Herrod, a former state lawmaker known for strict immigration positions, and Tanner Ainge, a business consultant, first-time candidate and son of Boston Celtics president Danny Ainge.

Out-of-state organizations and political action committees have spent about $900,000 in Utah's race on top of about $600,000 in campaign contributions collected by the three Republicans running for Utah's 3rd Congressional District.

Outside spending of that magnitude is generally only seen in heavily Republican Utah when Democrats and Republicans face off in an occasional close race.

Early voter turnout was about 22 percent, and that number was expected to rise with polls open on Tuesday, said elections director Mark Thomas. Total turnout in the last primary, where Chaffetz was a popular incumbent, was about 33 percent.

Herrod, 51, and Ainge, 33, both voted for Trump, but all three candidates say they support the president's agenda including plans to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, revamp the tax code and repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Curtis, the target of most of the out-of-state attack ads, has faced suspicion and criticism from some Republicans for his 2000 run as a Democrat for the state Legislature and his time leading a county Democratic party. The 57-year-old identifies today as a conservative Republican and points out that Ronald Reagan, Trump and Chaffetz were all Democrats at one point.

For Ada Wilson, a 59-year-old Republican homemaker from Orem, Curtis' stint across the aisle is one of the reasons she's voting for him. Wilson said it shows Curtis can work in a bipartisan way to get things done.

"I think he acknowledges that being Republican with an 'R' by your name does not automatically make you a keeper of all the answers," she said.

David Nelson, a pharmaceutical representative from Salem, Utah, said he thinks Curtis' Democratic past shows he's not a conservative. Nelson said it's OK that Ainge hasn't held public office, and he's voting for the younger candidate because of his "business-minded" outlook.

"I think that you don't have to have all the experience in the world to go to Washington and work for the people," he said. "You just have to be in tune with the pulse of the people."

Martin Wilkins, a 39-year-old UPS worker from Orem, said Ainge seems like a nice guy but is too young and inexperienced.

"In the political world, he's just a kid and no one is going to listen to him," Wilkins said. "If you go into college and a kindergarten student starts trying to order people around, no one is going to listen."

Wilkins said he voted for Herrod because seems like the kind of person who tells it straight, whether it's popular or not.

The winner coming out of Tuesday's race will face a well-funded Democratic opponent who initially jumped in to challenge Chaffetz earlier this year. Kathryn Allen socked away more than half a million dollars after she called out Chaffetz early this year for his comments suggesting people should spend money on health care instead of iPhones.

Chaffetz made a surprise announcement that he was resigning at the end of June, citing a desire to spend more time with family after eight years in Congress. He's since taken a role as a Fox News commentator and announced he will be one of six visiting fellows at Harvard University this fall.

His announcement made what would have been a quiet municipal Election Day in which counties were conducting their first mail-in voting into a more complicated affair, and there have been problems with unaffiliated voters receiving ballots that should have gone only to Republicans.

Election officials have explained that unaffiliated voters can vote in the primary if they come to the polls and register as Republicans on Election Day. Unaffiliated votes for Republican candidates won't be counted.

Several third-party candidates are also running in November, including Jim Bennett, the son of the late former U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett, a longtime Republican who lost re-election in 2010, the first of several GOP candidates ousted in tea-party fueled wave. Jim Bennett is running as the first candidate of a new centrist party, the United Utah Party.

Associated Press writer Brady McCombs contributed to this report.

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3 Republicans face off in Utah primary for vacant House seat - STLtoday.com

"Mr. President - we must call evil by its name," tweeted Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado. "These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism."

But, a look back at the two-plus years since Trump burst onto the political scene suggests a disturbing pattern -- which goes like this:

1. Trump says or does something controversial or just plain wrong.

2. Republican elected leaders condemn him for it.

3. Trump never apologizes or acknowledges any sort of remorse or wrongdoing.

4. Republican elected officials carry on in support of Trump and his agenda.

I plucked out nine of the most high-profile instances in which Republican condemnation of Trump turned to acceptance. These are in no order other than that in which I recalled them.

"Who wrote that? Did Hillary's scriptwriters write it?" Trump said in an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos right after the Democratic convention. Trump also responded directly to the attack from Khan that the Republican nominee had never known true sacrifice: "I think I've made a lot of sacrifices," Trump said. "I work very, very hard."

At a campaign rally in May 2016 in San Diego, Trump took out after Gonzalo Curiel, the judge in a lawsuit against Trump University.

"Everybody says it, but I have a judge who is a hater of Donald Trump, a hater," Trump said. "He's a hater. His name is Gonzalo Curiel."

Trump went on to insinuate that Curiel's Mexican heritage -- though the judge was born in Indiana -- meant that he couldn't offer a fair ruling because of Trump's position on building a wall on the US' southern border.

In February 2016, Trump was asked -- again, by Tapper -- about David Duke, a prominent white supremacist who had endorsed him days earlier.

During the campaign, Trump claimed that he remembered Muslims celebrating on New Jersey rooftops on September 11, 2001. Kovaleski was a reporter for The Washington Post at the time, had investigated those reports and found nothing to them.

Trump, unhappy with the the way the one-time Fox News anchor moderated a Republican primary debate, took after Megyn Kelly. "You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes," Trump told CNN's Don Lemon on Friday night. "Blood coming out of her wherever."

He later insisted his reference had nothing to do with Kelly's menstrual cycle. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, at the time a Trump primary challenger, said he "would certainly never say anything about a person like that, and I hope [Trump] apologizes because I think that he should."

In his announcement speech in June 2015, Trump said Mexico was sending bad people to the US. "They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us," Trump said. "They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists."

Bush said of the comment: "He's doing this to inflame and incite and to draw attention, which seems to be the organizing principle of his campaign."

And yet, through it all, Trump is still in the White House and still, broadly speaking, enjoys the backing of the vast majority of Republican elected officials. Remember that when considering all of the condemnation being issued of Trump's latest major mistake.

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9 times Republicans denounced Trump but came back to him - CNN International

By Robert Bradley | August 15, 2017, 11:10 EDT

Printed from: http://newbostonpost.com/2017/08/15/republicans-need-to-build-their-coalition-not-destroy-it/

One might think that Republicans would understand that political power in America is all about building coalitions. The Republican Party was founded in 1854 by creating a coalition of anti-slavery Northerners and the remnants of the Whig party. Abolitionists, merchants, and the emerging urban middle class combined to create a party which ran the U.S. government most of the time from 1861 until 1913. Moralists and economic pragmatists joined together to win political power and use it effectively. The coalition split in 1912, when Republican Teddy Roosevelt ran against Republican President William Taft, thereby handing the presidency to Woodrow Wilson.

Fast forward one hundred years. Republicans today are in as much disarray as in 1912. How did they get here?

Republicans were largely out of power between FDRs landslide victory in 1932 and 1980, because Democrats had built their own powerful coalition of Northern liberals from large cities and Southern conservatives. But then Republicans figured out how to build another coalition. It started with the conservatives like William F. Buckley Jr. making common cause with Barry Goldwaters losing campaign in 1964, survived Richard Nixons zigzagging and disastrous ending, and came to fruition in the person of Ronald Reagan.

The coalition was made up of economic conservatives and libertarians, patriots who believed America needed a strong foreign policy and military to defeat the evil empire, and social conservatives who focused on strong families, the sanctity of life, and traditional standards of right and wrong.

What were the demographics of this coalition which held together (with a few miscues) from 1981 through 2008? Men, married women, the white working class (Reagan Democrats), and the middle class outside the coastal states. In fact, the coalition was so broad that President Reagan won 49 states in 1984; Mondale won only his home state of Minnesota.

To win, Republicans need voters who care about three crucial groups of issues, which do not necessarily overlap: a strong economy with robust GDP growth and job creation (smaller government and less regulation); a foreign policy and effective military which projects American power to aid our friends and confound our enemies; and traditional moral values dealing with marriage, intact families, and life, which are vital to healthy communities.

In short, economic conservatives, patriots, and social conservatives! When these three groups of voters split or fall out, Republicans lose. And to exercise power effectively and hold it at the polls, Republicans within these three groups need to compromise and work together.

This is not rocket science. What is wrong with Republicans in Washington now? Are they so anti-Trump that they want to see their party fail? Are they more interested in grandstanding for the folks back home than accomplishing Republican goals? Are they narcissists like John McCain whose DNA leads him to feel fulfilled only when acting in opposition (to the enemy or his own party)? (Imagine voting against your own party in the health care debate in the Senate only to receive accolades and hugs from your Democratic opponents.) Are some senators more attached to the Freedom Caucus than their own party? Are key senators so focused on standing for the Presidency in the 2020 elections that they refuse to work within an effective coalition?

Democrats in Washington enforce strict party discipline. It is extremely rare to see a Democratic legislator vote against his or her own party. There are serious consequences for doing so. Not so in the Republican Party! Republicans need to utilize the three-line whip system which is used in the U.K. parliamentary system. A three-line whip is a strict instruction from party leaders that those elected to office in their party must attend and vote with the party. A breach of the three-line whip directive has serious consequences, including preferences in committee assignments and even withdrawal of party support and funds in the next election.

The Republican Party in Washington is pathetic. It is a joke except that squandering this great opportunity to unwind the eight-year debacle of the Obama administration is more tragic than comic. Republicans need to strengthen the coalition which has given them both houses of Congress and the White House not fritter it away! The current Republican coalition can maintain power and use it effectively for a long time, if only Republicans in Washington can learn the precious virtue of unity.

Robert H. Bradley is Chairman of Bradley, Foster & Sargent Inc., a $3.25 billion wealth management firm that has offices in Hartford, Connecticut, and Wellesley, Massachusetts. This column represents his personal views and does not represent the views of the firm.Read other articles by himhere.

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Republicans Need To Build Their Coalition, Not Destroy It - NewBostonPost (blog)

Did you know that Dr. Seusss books are secretly racist? Prof. Philip Nel has been reading between the lines, and brings the news to woke parents. Excerpts:

Fattal:You argue that there is an imperative to keep reading these problematic childrens books. What would you say to those who ask why we wouldnt just stop reading them?

There is actually a very strong case for not reading them. Racist books inflict real damage on children of all races. So theres a very strong argument to be made for that, and I dont want to diminish that at all. The reason that I am not making that argument is that I dont think that ignoring the symptom cures the disease. People need to learn that this is one place that racism comes from. They need to learn it in context. You definitely shouldnt only teach racist childrens books. Theres a wealth of really thoughtful, historically oriented and carefully written books that can help us think about colonialism or racism or sexism more thoughtfully, and you would only want to teach these books in that context.

I think that to erase the crime does not erase its effects. Its still there and we still have to deal with it, and in some ways, the unvarnished awfulness of it, as painful as it is to look at, can be a way to do that, and can be a way to help make it visible elsewhere. If you dont know the history of minstrelsy, then you dont notice it in Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny or the Cat in the Hat. Its knowing the history that helps you say, this pop culture that I enjoy is way more racialized than I was aware of, and thats troubling.

Fattal:You talk about the need for a parent or teacher to facilitate discussions on the racist elements of childrens books with students who may be too young to do this kind of critical reading on their own. What might that conversation look like?

Nel:It will obviously depend on the individual child, the age of the child, et cetera, but the best way is to ask questions. When you notice something in a book, ask questions about it.Would you be happy working in a factory and being imprisoned there? What do you make of presenting the Oompa Loompas as happy? What are some of the assumptions of this work? Why is it presenting this character in this way? Why are all the characters in this book white? What do you make of that?You want children to think about power in the text, whose interests are represented in the text, who is not being heard in the text. And you can focus those on the specific work.

I think with children you have to have a conversationyou have to ask them critical questions, and you have to invite them to ask critical questions about the book that they are reading. Its a conversation thats going to be uncomfortable, a conversation in which you may have to admit you dont know all the answers. Its not an easy conversation to have, by any means. One of the things that I do when I teach [college students] in class is I acknowledge my own uncomfortableness. Because sometimes students dont want to talk about this. And so I acknowledge why theyre uncomfortable and that Im uncomfortable, too, and that its okay to be uncomfortable. I think thats the kind of tone to set when you have these conversations: that this is going to be uncomfortable.

Read the whole thing.Mom, would you mind reading our bedtime story tonight? Its no fun when Dad does it.

So, readers, lets have some fun here. What are some questions you could ask your child at bedtime to get them good and woke on familiar childrens stories? Not just Dr. Seuss books, but other classics. Is there a feministreading of Ramona the Pest? Does Goodnight Moon tell us anything about intersectionality?Come on, lets hear it.

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Story Time With Progressives - The American Conservative

BUCYRUS -- Emily Brown, daughter of U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, will speak at 6 p.m. Aug. 24 at the Bucyrus Public Library. Her talk is presented by the Mid-Ohio Progressives.

Brown is a Skadden Fellow at ABLE Advocates for Basic Legal Equality. She is a former judicial law clerk at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio and a former law clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Seeking his third term representing Ohio in the U.S. Senate, Democrat Sherrod Brown is a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Ohio Secretary of State and member of the Ohio House of Representatives. The Mansfield native is expected to face Republican Josh Mandel in the November 2018 election.

Mid-Ohio Progressives, a local group that formed earlier this year, will also have redistricting reform petitions available for signing. MOP is working with the coalition trying to get a constitutional amendment that would eliminate or greatly reduce partisan gerrymandering in Ohio on the ballot.

For more information, contact Stephanie Surina at 419-562-8021, Pat Hargis at 419-562-6512 or Lisa Miller at 419-569-2346.

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Emily Brown to address Mid-Ohio Progressives on Aug. 24 in Bucyrus - Richland Source