Disgraceful

The last refuge of candidates in Utah is to claim that's their opponent is not LDS, or worse still, a non-active member. And ex-staffer of Bob Bennnett's claims to have taken it upon himself to send out a mailer to GOP delegates that had imaginary pictures of one candidate standing in front of the Salt Lake Temple and one the US Capitol. And it backfired horribly. I hope the same happens to Gary Herbert.

Gov. Gary Herbert warned Thursday that the education plan put forward by his opponent, Democrat Peter Corroon, would likely mean the elimination of LDS seminary courses. Corroon’s proposal, Herbert said, would require an additional math course and science course for graduation, meaning students could take two fewer elective courses. “That means some arts and probably some seminary time,” Herbert said during his monthly news conference at KUED. “I don’t know if everyone thinks that will be a good idea to give up arts and seminary release time in order to have this more” rigorous schedule.

The obvious subtext of this comment has nothing to do with the competing education plans and everyone to do with religion and othering Corroon. The message here is clear: that Catholic Corroon is fixing to take away your LDS seminary classes, because he hates us Mormons. Herbert really should be ashamed of himself. Can his ideas really not compete with Corroon's that he has to stoop to poorly done whistle dog politics?

He was Corroon's response, which I wish had called out Herbert on this crap:

“There’s plenty of time during the day to take electives and plenty of time during the day to take seminary,” Corroon said. “I think the governor is trying to deflect attention from the fact our graduation rates are starting to fall, that our school system is not funded adequately and is starting to suffer because of it.” ... Asked if he thought Herbert was trying to use religion as a campaign issue, Corroon said he “would hope the governor is not trying to use the religion … card to divide people.”