Who is the new Mayor of NSL?

Natalie knows.

I yield the floor to our NSL insider.

Natalie?

Politics: Where are you Grounded?

Which of the three categories below do you feel is most important? Which is the least important?

Personal Ideology
Political Party
The Candidate

Some of you might be like my grandmother who voted for the most physically attractive candidate. This is the type of person that puts a lot of stock in who the person is running for office, but not much thought goes into what the the party wants. Your spouse could be the candidate in question in which case ideology, and party, are not considerations. You may pick a candidate based upon how well they have acted as leaders. You base your decision on the perceived success or failure of a politician-not their ideas-not their party.

Others of you may actually oppose 'ideologues'. You are Party people. You were born Republican, and you will stay so. You don't want any candidates religious, or personal, beliefs to bleed, too much, into their policy. Or, you see everyone else joining the Republican Party, and can't see a reason to follow the crowd, like lemmings. Instead, you're a Utah Democrat.

The third choice is the 'idealogue'. They wear their principles like a badge of honor. This individual may not show any loyalty at all to the candidate when the candidate appears to compromise. They don't always vote the party line, but will if it furthers their cause.

You may value a mixture of these, or have a different backstory than I have provided here, but you should generally find one of these criteria to be preeminent over the others. Which one do you choose? Personal Ideology? Political Party? The Candidate?

Here Ye! Here Ye! An Open Forum awaits...

This post is meant to draw those lurkers out of the woodwork. This is for those who have visited this blog often, but haven't quite contributed to the discussion. Here is your chance. Pose a question or, suggest a topic for discussion. Solve all of the worlds problems. But, here are the rules.

1. You must not have posted a comment to this blog before. (You may have never posted a comment anywhere.)
2. The subject matter must relate (somehow) to South Davis County, and should have (some) political implications.
3. Be nice.

Feed the Hungry, not the Politicians...

This is an email I received today from Pete Ashdown:

President Bush will be attending a fund raising dinner for my cash strapped opponent, Senator Hatch.
In response to this, I am personally buying dinner for up to 150 people at the Alta Club on August 29th at 6:00 PM. This dinner will be financed out of my pocket and will not draw from campaign donations. What I ask of the attendees to this dinner is to make a sizable donation to a charity of your choice that deals with hunger in America. I will have a list of suggested charities at the dinner and my staff will collect and tabulate and send the donations. No charity is coordinating with the campaign on this dinner, they are simply receiving the donations as designated by the attendees.

Senator Hatch, President Bush, Secretary Rice and anyone else are welcome to attend this dinner.

This is not a campaign fund raiser and donations to my campaign will not be funneled to this event or the charities. If you wish to make a donation to a hunger charity in response to this effort outside of the event on the 29th, please let me know.

If you can attend the event on the 29th, please RSVP* by Friday, August 25th. Choose chicken, beef, or vegetarian menu items.

I can't remember how to post an email link, but if anyone is interested in attending the dinner, the RSVP email address is feed-rsvp@pashdown.org.

Also, apologies to Tyler for the hijack. If he didn't want me to ever post anything, he would have taken away the ability, right? :)

deseretnews.com | North Salt Lake mayoral hopefuls line up

There are now nine people that want the job of Mayor of North Salt Lake(Orchard Hills). Three are currently on the city council and have to recuse themselves from the vote. That leaves two people to decide on the next Mayor.

Lisa Watts Baskin and Matt Hardy.

Be afraid! Be very afraid!

deseretnews.com | North Salt Lake mayoral hopefuls line up

The Sunlight Foundation: Earmarks in FY2007

According to The Sunlight Foundation, Utah has requested $2,575,000 in earmarks in the up and coming Labor HHS Bill.

How much of the total 2.5 million is coming to Davis County? The answer below.

(click and drag your mouse over the text here: $0.00 to see the answer)

Well done Davis County!

Announcing: The Utah Rattler

One more blog has emerged in the blogosphere. I believe it's an associate of mine, but I don't want to give anything away since anonymity is the new currency of the web.

Nevertheless, he is a resident of Davis County--resides in Bountiful, and blogs on national issues as well. I think he and I should agree about 99% of the time, so if I haven't done something to offend you today, you could check with the Rattler!

Utah Rattler

Salt Lake Tribune - Off the Agenda: Rocky jabs at Utah Democratic Party

I'm told that I have "partisan eyes" (Actually, their green). This, of course, means that I always take the Republican stance, support the party, and oppose all alternatives. Here is our Loyalist chant (sung to the tune of Batman).

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na Republican
Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na Republican
Republican, Republican, Republican.

The flip-side of this coin would be the person that exhibits no loyalty, whatsoever, to their party. Rocky Anderson is a good example of this type of person.

Exhibit A.
"'Democrats have a long history of screwing up just about everything they touch.' "

Exhibit B.
Rocky's endorsement of Keith Christensen, Republican.

I guess this means that in Bizarro world, my name would be Rocky!

Salt Lake Tribune - Off the Agenda: Rocky jabs at Utah Democratic Party

Two opinions on Taxes: Where North Korea and Cuba meet

The Clipper, lovely paper that it is, has posted two opinions on the proposition of raising taxes within Davis County. (There is no indication on the Clipper website as to who wrote each article, but I've sorted it out for you below.)

Anyway, the articles reveal a lot about who wrote them. Sanders, a Democrat, is proposing a moral equivalency test that compares Davis County with North Korea and Cuba. Sanders seems to imply that because our County is largely Republican, that it's citizens have become the victims of starvation--which, I'll agree is the program of many a Dictatorship. Where I disagree is in how he is associating Davis County Government with some of the more heartless, evil, governments that have ever existed on planet earth. Because we have Golf Professionals in the County does not imply that we are neglecting our duty to provide for our Women, Infants, and Children. It does say something about what we, collectively, think of golf.

I, myself, don't play golf and think it should be abolished. Why our fearless leaders have restrained themselves in issuing such a decree I can't say?

Even I have, once upon a time, drawn a comparison between Davis County and Cuba. But, I never said that our people don't get fed because of the government. (In an earlier blog post I compared our Channel 17 with Cuba's state run Television channel.) What Sanders has implied of the Republican Party in this county is reprehensible!

Todd Weiler heads the Republican Party for the county and wrote a more reasonable and, therefore, dull opinion. Well, it's not controversial enough to discuss here. You may follow the link, and read it, yourself.

Gregory J. Sanders

Todd Weiler