That would be a reasonable top of the bell curve, call, but there is a fairly high Standard Deviation on this race, as is often the case in primaries. There is certainly a material possibility for an upset, although I suspect that is unlikely. It is a gut call based on my experience however, nothing "scientific." Jacob in my view has succeeded in making the sole case for his election the sending of a message on immigration. Otherwise he seems out there. But then I am not an LDS member living in Provo. So what is way out there to me, may not be to them.
Does the Right Hand Know What the Far Right Hand Doeth?
by Gordon S. Jones
Quarterback Bay Buchanan, of Team America, steps up to the line of scrimmage and surveys the playing field, trying to read the defense:
1. At the Utah Republican Convention she blasts John Jacob as being weak on immigration. She and her organization endorse Merrill Cook (in fact she nominates him) against Chris Cannon in Utah’s Third District.
Fair enough. After all, Jacob had called Tom Tancredo, founder of Team America, “an opportunist,” and implied some harsher things. He also failed the UFIRE interview, provoking a very harsh e-mail attack on him.
2. But Cook lost at convention, leaving Jacob the only anti-Cannon game in town, so Buchanan calls an audible at the line of scrimmage, and Team America comes to Utah with an ad campaign endorsing Jacob.
3. Meantime, however, at a joint interview with the editors of the Provo Daily Herald, Cannon had mentioned the compromise plan being proposed by Indiana Rep. Mike Pence. Oh yes, says Jacob. Pence probably got the idea from me.
4. That is unlikely, since Pence actually got the idea from Helen Krieble of the Vernon Krieble Foundation. You can read Pence’s short description of it here, and the complete Krieble Foundation report here. Utah State Senator Howard Stephenson has mooted a related idea around.
5. But wherever Pence got it, it is doing him no good with Team America. On their website (where you can also see a picture of Chris Cannon with a bull’s eye painted on him) [since taken down — Ed.] there is a vicious attack on Mike Pence and his proposal, and Bay’s brother Pat blitzes Pence in an op-ed posted on TownHall.
So here you have Team America running ads supporting John Jacob whose position on immigration is similar to Mike Pence’s—and Chris Cannon’s for that matter—at the same time Team America targets the former for political annihilation and the latter for…well, who knows?
Time out, and back to the huddle.
NB: the use of the term “right” in the headline is not to be confused with “conservative,” at least as I understand the terms and use them. The “right” in this sense implies a certain cultural and social attitude that is often shared by conservatives, but not always. Sometimes terms like “social conservative” are used to make the distinction, but I prefer to describe myself as a conservative, but not a Man of the Right. By rights, to avoid confusion, I should have modified the headline, but I was so enamored of the wordplay I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Maybe if I could have gotten the football metaphor to work out better….
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I'm not sure how much this is a legitimate campaign for a candidate or just another bumbling effort by the buchanan's to exert influence. What will be interesting is how this will impact their future efforts should their last choice "candidate" loose.