{"id":193,"date":"2017-12-08T23:10:57","date_gmt":"2017-12-09T03:10:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/themormonpolitico\/?p=193"},"modified":"2017-12-08T23:10:57","modified_gmt":"2017-12-09T03:10:57","slug":"mia-love-is-running-scared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themormonpolitico\/2017\/12\/mia-love-is-running-scared\/","title":{"rendered":"Mia Love Is Running Scared"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Utah Congresswoman Mia Love. Obtained through Creative Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Mia Love isn\u2019t standing up for women \u2013 she\u2019s fighting for her political survival.\u00a0<\/em><\/h2>\n \u201cI think that he should voluntarily resign.\u201d<\/p>\n The quote above could apply to any number of famous men recently accused of sexual impropriety. Last night, Arizona Republican Congressman Trent Franks resigned amid allegations that he had pressured female staffers to role-play The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/em><\/del> bear his children. Earlier this week, Minnesota Democratic Senator Al Franken tendered his resignation, following a flood of groping allegations. Since early November, Alabama Republican senatorial candidate Roy Moore has faced bipartisan calls to quit his race, as now 9 women have accused him of sexual harassment or assault while they were teenagers (Moore purportedly molested one of them when she was 14).<\/p>\n But no, this quote wasn\u2019t about Franks, Franken, or Moore. Rather, it was about Texas Republican Congressman Blake Farenthold<\/a> \u2013 and it\u00a0came from\u00a0Utah Republican Congresswoman Mia Love.<\/p>\n At first, I wanted to applaud Love\u2019s political courage. It\u2019s not easy for a second-term, African-American, Republican congresswoman (a double-minority in the overwhelmingly white and male Republican caucus) to condemn a third-term, white, Republican congressman. And Rep. Love\u2019s comments on Farenthold would seem consistent with her earlier statements; after all, she had previously called for Franken to step down, and she refused to vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.<\/p>\n But after my initial impulse to praise Love, I started thinking. Love\u00a0represents Utah\u2019s fourth congressional district, the most left-leaning in the solidly red state. Her constituents were previously represented by the popular Democratic congressman Jim Matheson,\u00a0the scion of a prominent Mormon political family and a proud member of the conservative \u201cBlue Dog\u201d Democratic caucus. In the two elections Love won in her district after Matheson\u2019s retirement, her margin of victory was substantially smaller than that of other members of Utah\u2019s congressional delegation. In fact, at points during the 2016 election, her district was rated a \u201ctoss-up\u201d<\/a> by some polling firms.<\/p>\n Basically, Love represents the one potential \u201cswing district\u201d in Utah. With that in mind, her \u201ccourageous\u201d\u00a0condemnation of\u00a0Farenthold seems less like a principled stand against sexual misconduct and more like a calculated move to preempt attacks from her likely\u00a0challenger in 2018, Democratic Mayor of Salt Lake County Ben McAdams.<\/p>\n McAdams poses a serious threat to Love\u2019s hold on her seat. He first won his mayoral office in 2012, a tough year for Utah Democrats with Mitt Romney topping the GOP ticket, by vanquishing Republican Marc Crockett by over 9 percentage points<\/a>. He once again triumphed in 2016, when he trounced his Republican opponent by almost 19 percentage points<\/a>.<\/p>\n McAdams has been able to beat out Republicans by leveraging his renown for being a pragmatic moderate with a fiscally conservative track record. His reputation for bipartisanship is such that, during his 2012 race, many Republican officials endorsed him, and 22% of\u00a0GOP voters cast their ballots for him. Further, he has somehow managed to pull off the seemingly impossible task of appealing to both Mormons<\/a> (McAdams himself is active LDS<\/a>) and the LGBT community (Ben represented the most LGBT-heavy district in the Utah State Senate). His successful effort at triangulating an ideologically varied cross-section of Utahans has lent itself to his campaign slogan: \u201cYeah, he\u2019s different.\u201d<\/p>\n Love is right to be worried by a challenge from McAdams \u2013 and that, more than a \u201cProfiles in Courage\u201d mentality, may explain why she\u2019s been so eager to put herself front and center in calling for Farenthold\u2019s head. In a 2018 face-off, McAdams will likely seek to weigh Love down with the albatross of Donald Trump, a figure who is\u00a0surprisingly unpopular<\/a> in deep-red Utah. As stated earlier, Love did criticize Trump during the 2016 election and refused to vote for him. Yet, leading up to his inauguration, she said that he was \u201ckind\u201d and \u201cgracious,\u201d<\/a> and, since his installment in the White House, she has been noticeably loath to condemn his many breaches of civility and presidential decorum.<\/p>\n With the specter of Trump\u2019s unfitness for office \u2013 and 19 women\u2019s credible accusations that he sexually assaulted them \u2013 hanging over Love, she must think that denouncing Farenthold\u00a0will mitigate the impact of McAdams\u2019s all-but-certain future attack ads linking her to our debauched commander in chief. Time will tell if this strategy will work. But one thing is certain \u2013 Love\u2019s\u00a0eagerness to condemn Farenthold shouldn\u2019t be read as a courageous stand for dignity and decency. Rather, it should be seen for what it is \u2013 a calculated attempt to cast herself as a champion for women\u00a0as she dreads being linked (rightly) to the chauvinist in the Oval Office.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mia Love isn\u2019t standing up for women \u2013 she\u2019s fighting for her political survival.\u00a0 \u201cI think that he should voluntarily resign.\u201d The quote above could apply to any number of famous men recently accused of sexual impropriety. Last night, Arizona Republican Congressman Trent Franks resigned amid allegations that he had pressured female staffers to role-play […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2542,"featured_media":195,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3,5,1],"tags":[168,171,169,170],"class_list":["post-193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-donald-trump","category-mormon","category-politics","category-uncategorized","tag-ben-mcadams","tag-blake-farenthold","tag-mia-love","tag-sexual-assault"],"yoast_head":"\nMia Love Is Running Scared<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Mia Love isn't standing up for women - she's fighting for her political survival.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mia Love Is Running Scared\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mia Love isn't standing up for women - she's fighting for her political survival.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themormonpolitico\/2017\/12\/mia-love-is-running-scared\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Mormon Politico\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-12-09T03:10:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/782\/2017\/12\/Mia_Love_official_congressional_photo.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1363\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2048\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gary A.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Gary A.\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themormonpolitico\/2017\/12\/mia-love-is-running-scared\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themormonpolitico\/2017\/12\/mia-love-is-running-scared\/\",\"name\":\"Mia Love Is Running Scared\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themormonpolitico\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2017-12-09T03:10:57+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-12-09T03:10:57+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themormonpolitico\/#\/schema\/person\/bb6436a934fb593a60f0f0ab2f160139\"},\"description\":\"Mia Love isn't standing up for women - she's fighting for her political survival.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themormonpolitico\/2017\/12\/mia-love-is-running-scared\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themormonpolitico\/2017\/12\/mia-love-is-running-scared\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themormonpolitico\/2017\/12\/mia-love-is-running-scared\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themormonpolitico\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Mia Love Is Running Scared\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themormonpolitico\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themormonpolitico\/\",\"name\":\"The Mormon Politico\",\"description\":\"Politics through a left-leaning Mormon's eyes.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themormonpolitico\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themormonpolitico\/#\/schema\/person\/bb6436a934fb593a60f0f0ab2f160139\",\"name\":\"Gary A.\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themormonpolitico\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/10ed9b89d5637ee99b10c7c30528bab2?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/10ed9b89d5637ee99b10c7c30528bab2?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Gary A.\"},\"description\":\"Gary works on national security issues for a left-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C. 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