For the Mormon political scoop…

…the go-to source is Joanna Brooks, over at Religion Dispatches. In the latest of her posts, Brooks explains why Mike Lee’s victory in Utah’s GOP Senate primary Tuesday was not the clear-cut Tea Party triumph that some–i.e. WaPo’s David Weigel–imagine it to be. In Utah, Mormon roots run very deep, and you can’t tell the […]

…the go-to source is Joanna Brooks, over at Religion Dispatches. In the latest of her posts, Brooks explains why Mike Lee’s victory in Utah’s GOP Senate primary Tuesday was not the clear-cut Tea Party triumph that some–i.e. WaPo’s David Weigel–imagine it to be. In Utah, Mormon roots run very deep, and you can’t tell the players without a genealogical scorecard.

Bottom line: Lee’s as hooked into the multi-generational Mormon past as you can be, while his opponent, Tim Bridgewater, is not. That’s not to say that Lee didn’t have some Tea Party support. But as Brooks points out, the movement has distinct regional variants, and in Utah it’s got a strong admixture of Mormon establishmentarianism: “Call it Brigham Tea?”

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