Replies

Now why would this same NE coast Rockefeller Republican garner 90% of the Utah vote, and win overwhelmingly in Wyoming or Nevada?

I think that is attributable to how Mormons are perceived in the West. Contrary to the vitriol displayed by Mormon defenders here, The West recognizes Mormons as staunch patriots with Conservative and Christian principles.

I really believe the Mormon tag along with Romney's stated positions caused people to accept him at face value rather than digging into his record. I dare say that most had no idea he was from the Northeast, not to mention that he was a liberal governor in very liberal Massachusetts.

Even so, the greater dichotomy is rather stunning. Huck won the South, and the lower Midwest, while Romney won the Mountain West and the upper Midwest. An interesting difference that I would like to see explained.

Maybe Southerners have long memories of a bad history.

“Mormon leaders consistently expressed their feelings that the war had been brought on by the wickedness of the United States, which had rejected Mormonism and permitted the death of the prophet of God and his servants…. Although the waste of lives was lamentable, a war between states would avenge the death of Joseph Smith. The Saints seemed especially gratified that Jackson County was a war zone and that Missouri would suffer the penalty of its cruelties to the Mormons. Besides avenging the blood of the innocent, the Lord would also prepare the way before his coming, which Mormons believed would occur in Jackson County, Missouri…. William Clayton wrote that such a spirit seemed to operate on Brigham Young’s mind: ‘All Latter-day Saints will not stay here [in Utah] forever. He [Young] talks much and frequently about Jackson County, Missouri.”

- Eugene E. Campbell, Establishing Zion: The Mormon Church in the American West, 1847-1869, 1988, p. 235

“We are daily told [by the Mormons]… that we, (the Gentiles,) of this county are to cut off, and our lands appropriated by them for inheritance. Whether this is to be accomplished by the hand of the destroying angel, the judgments of God, or the arm of power, they are not fully agreed among themselves.”

- Western Monitor (Fayette, Missouri), August 2, 1833; quoted in Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 1945, p. 131

“If gentiles (Missourian Old Settlers) did not wish to live among the Mormons, they would be forced to sell out to them and most likely at a loss…. On the other hand, if the gentiles attempted to remain in Jackson County, Mormon immigration ensured the Saints would soon make up the majority of the population, which would thereby permit them to oust the old settlers through ostensibly legal methods.”

- Kenneth Winn, Exiles in a Land of Liberty, p. 93