Paul Jones Dayton

I am very happy to see the defeat of school vouchers.   I see it as a way to prohibit the privatization of education in our State.  I strongly believe in the ability of the public schools in Utah to educate our children.  Key to the success of public or private schools is the involvement of a child’s parents.  It is for that reason that the Utah public schools are able to achieve so much from while being so poorly funded.

I found this excerpt from Wednesday’s Salt Lake Tribune interesting:

Voucher supporter Overstock.com chief executive Patrick Byrne – who bankrolled the voucher effort – called the referendum a “statewide IQ test” that Utahns failed.
“They don’t care enough about their kids. They care an awful lot about this system, this bureaucracy, but they don’t care enough about their kids to think outside the box,” Byrne said.

I say this to Mr. Byrne: The people of Utah care deeply about their kids.  As a member of the majority of the state who does not support vouchers I can honestly say that I voted that way because I care deeply about my child.  I want my daughter to go to the highest quality public school.  If for some reason I feel compelled to place my daughter in private school I am willing to do so of my own expense, without asking a cashed strapped system for some sort of welfare check.  Mr Byrne: show me compelling evidence that the people of this state don’t care about their children.

For all of those Romney fans who feel super cool about the win in Iowa consider the following:

The three top contenders in the race, Giuliani, McCain, and Thompson chose not to participate.  Romney was competing with the likes of Huckabee and Brownback, names that garner a couple percentage points each in national polls.

Romney outspent his nearest competitor by 10-1.  Add on top of that the fact that this was a vote at a Republican fundraiser, not a vote of all Republicans.

Romney’s victory doesn’t seem that great to me.

It was a messy, nasty debate.  At times I could barely stand to watch, because of the disorder.  However, through the whole debate we saw a couple constant themes appear:

Rocky Anderson:  Stuck to the facts, attacked the president based on his facts.

Sean Hannity:  Attacked Rocky Anderson, called to “Support the Troops.” and avoided defending the president.

I wasn’t really surprised by the tone of the debate, however, I think Hannity may have been surprised by the veracity of the crowd.  The crowd was surprisingly about equally divided between supporters and skeptics of the war in Iraq.

Tonight the wife and I watched part one of “The Mormons,” a PBS documentary about the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It was a fairly interesting 2 hours that appeared to try to honestly be fair and balanced.  My great question is what did actual mormons think about this documentary?

I am happy to see that Utah’s attorney general, Mark Shurtleff is in line with the Republican hacks who believe things are going well in Iraq.  In a really useful speech the attorney general referred to Senate Majority leader as  “Hezbolla Harry.” He also compared Mayor Rocky Anderson to World War II traitors.  Thanks Mark Shurtleff for showing the close minded people of Utah that is it unpatriotic to see reality.  You know the bible says something like thou shalt not kill, but I guess God is just a weak minded idiot who would gladly surrender to terrorists.

It is awesome to see the government function now that Democrats are in power.  Alberto Gonzales looks like he is sinking, as his department has flat out lied about its political firings.  The senate also appears to be resuming the war debate, which is a very good thing!  I want to see an official date for withdrawal from Iraq.

I am so excited for the possible Democratic victory.  I believe that is is becoming necessary that regardless of our political persuasions we elect a Democratic majority in both houses to check the power that George Bush has exerted into our political system.  One man should not have the power to suspend habeas corpus for any reasons he or she deems fit.  An administration should be accountable for its mistakes.

I am going to work at the polls on November 7.  Democracy is cool!

The New York Times ran an article today talking about my original home town and it’s love for George W. Bush. Out of the whole United States there are only three states where at least half of the folk still believe W is doing a good job, and sadly I live in one of those places. The article profiled people’s opinions in Provo, where despite low approval for Bush’s handling of key policy issues, the majority of people still support Bush. There is one key reason that Utahns support Bush; he is “good with God.” While George Bush might not be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, my fellow Utahns just can’t get enough of the “religious president Bush.” I really wish I could understand why they still support Bush.  Ask a few LDS, Bush supporters in Utah if they agree with President Bush’s immigration policy, and strong majority would split with George. Go a step further, and ask Utahns if they enjoy the role the Republican Administration plays in their life and they would flat out detest the policies of the executive branch of the Federal government. Yet their support for Bush is strong. Utahns are very bright people, but when it comes to politics we Utahns vote our hearts and not our minds…I tend to vote my mind, but then again I am not the model Mormon .

I am transferring all of my settings to a new laptop and I thought I would give my old blog a try.  The new laptop is fully compatible with the blog, as it is a computer than can run an operating system!  I also finally caught up on some of my old e-mail and found a WordPress Comment that stirred my interest.  It seems like someone claiming to be Dell Schanze aka “SuperDell,” posted a comment in an old post.  While this may be a prank, I have a feeling that this was actually a post by the right wing lunatic himself.  My assumption is that a poor and miserable Dell may be spending his extended unemployment searching Technorati for comments about is sorry ass.  I hope you had fun Dell, but we all think you are nuts, and a poor excuse for a business person.

I went to my caucus meeting last night and I was very surprised by the turnout and enthusiasm.  My house legislative district is District 50, which is primarily compromised of South Jordan.  While, unfortunately, not all precincts within District 50 had members attending, my particular precinct had many attendees.  A South Jordan local, Christian Burridge, will be challenging the infamous Chris Cannon in the third district.  Many members of his neighborhood were at the meeting in support of Burridge’s candidacy.

As always, I was very happy to know that I am not on some political island in my community.  I was happy I attended.