DeMint attempts to redefine acceptable ideology in Utah primary

The political statistics and analysis site Fivethirtyeight.com has an appraisal of the Utah race today and DeMint’s role in it.   This site usually crunches numbers.  In this case, however, they are trying to get their heads around the power-play that DeMint is embroiled in here.   Both DeMint’s candidate Mike Lee and his opponent Tim Bridgewater are leapfrogging themselves running as far to the right as possible.  Bridgewater is characterized this way:

This is interesting not only because Bennett’s RINO status seemed a little dubious to many Republicans, particularly outside Utah, but because Bridgewater is hardly a western version of pre-party-switch Arlen Specter. He favors repeal of the 16th Amendment authorizing the federal income tax, along with abolition of corporate taxes. He proposes a five-year phase-out of all funding for the federal Departments of Education and Energy, and also of all federal land management programs. Yes, he was endorsed by Bennett, but was also endorsed by defeated convention candidate Cherilyn Eagar, a social conservative activist who was herself endorsed by Eagle Forum’s movement conservative warhorse Phyllis Schlafly.

DeMint is positioning himself to the right of Phyllis Schlafly?  Maybe we can look for Anita Bryant to make an appearance soon.

DeMint may have found a candidate who’s wants to shut down the Department of Education twice as fast as his opponent, but he might not be socially conservative enough for Utah:

South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint hit voters with an autodial supporting Mike Lee. A good thing for Lee, it would seem, although some who got the call were put off by getting wooed by political campaigns on a Sunday. That flies in South Carolina, but politicking on Sunday in Utah is frowned upon.

When Piedmont Presbyterians abandon the sabbath for politicking, perhaps earthly ambition is outstripping heavenly intentions.

Today’s Salt Lake Tribune comes down on the side of Bridgewater, and gives Lee’s Christian Reconstructionist ideology as the reason in this editorial:

Lee’s expertise is his encyclopedic knowledge of the Constitution. But his notions of the founding document are reactionary, so extreme, in fact, that we doubt they will ever find traction in mainstream American legal or political thinking. To do so would require reversing much of the jurisprudence of the 20th century.

To be fair, Bridgewater’s policies are almost as radical. This is, after all, a contest between hard-right ideologues. But we sense from our discussion with Bridgewater at least a modicum of openness to the spectrum of ideas, a glimmer of a pragmatism. We can’t say that of Lee.

So far as specific policy stands go, frankly, there’s not much difference.

Christian Reconstructionism is essentially a movement to bring current law in line with the Old Testament.  While this might not necessarily lead to the re-imposition of slavery, the stoning of adulterers, and the execution of homosexuals, the founder of the movement certainly felt that way.  Most of us would rather keep a million miles away from these opinions.  Given that DeMint has associated himself with the Reconstructionist in a contest where nothing else is in dispute, the voters will go the other way.  So what isn’t in dispute in this election? What do these candidates believe? In summary,

…both would repeal the income tax, and perhaps the 16th Amendment, replacing it with a flat tax or a national consumption tax. Abandoning a progressive income tax would reverse a century of U.S. policy at a time when income discrepancy in the nation is widening and the middle class is disappearing. Such a policy could shift the tax burden from the wealthy toward the middle class and even the poor.

Both would repeal the new health care reform law. Both would work to give the state a greater role in administering federal lands. Lee would assert limited state sovereignty over them; Bridgewater would exempt Utah from any more national park, monument or wilderness designations.

So the sole difference is that DeMint’s candidate would read the U.S. Constitution as biblical document.  Depressing result.