NEW YORK TIMES: Mormon Politicians From Utah Feel Tea Party Heat. “What amplifies the Tea Party’s role is that Utah, more than perhaps any other state, is dominated by the Republican Party. No Democrat has won statewide office here since a two-term attorney general in the 1990s. That means Tea Party activists do not need to think much, or talk much, about the Democrats, who can largely be dismissed as irrelevant; they can thus concentrate fully on remaking the Republican Party from within, by shaping it and handpicking candidates. . . . Some longtime political observers here see in the Tea Party’s rise an echo of the historic realignment in the mid-1970s when Mr. Hatch first rose to power and Republicans consolidated their grip.” The story’s Mormon angle, however, seems a bit forced.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

In 2008, when Romney ran, the Department of Justice listed, as its number one gangster, a fringe, defrocked “Fundamentalist Mormon” polygamist. Big Love, the HBO show about the same topic was highly promoted. Although ordinary Mormons have nothing to do with polygamy, the criminal prosecution of the “Prophet” and Big Love’s popularity kept the notion of Mormons as crazy in the media. The NYT will run more articles on Mormons and Tea Parties and Mormons and polygamy and the DOJ may pursue another fearful polygamist all in an effort to harm Romney, which it will.

Whatever one thinks of Romney, the use of these tactics to sully his religion are foul and would not be tolerated for a Democrat. Prejudice seems to be on the rise in the country.

Well, only so long as it’s politically useful.