Bush Legacy Tour

SALT LAKE CITY, UT- Salt Lake City is often characterized as a very red city in a very red state.  While the President has an approval rating in the late twenties in the US overall, in Utah his rating is around 55%. That is a pretty huge jump from the national average. Much like our many other stops in red states, the people are usually more excited than other areas to see the bus because there is not typically a lot of dissent towards this administration. As soon as we rolled into the hotel parking lot, we were greeted with support. There was a man in the parking lot who was with one of the drivers for the local symphony and he was very excited we were there.

Utah has the misfortune of having not one but two conservative Senators that have supported Bush’s agenda without fail. Senators Hatch and Bennett are often so identical in their reliably conservative votes that they should just save the taxpayers of Utah some money and combine their offices at home and in DC.  Senator Hatch was asked by the local paper what he thought about the Bush Legacy Bus and he released this statement: "I always do what I believe is right and in the best interest of our state and country. My positions generally reflect the opinions of Utahans, and President Bush won Utah by huge majorities in 2000 and 2004."

 

An older man I had been speaking with for a while gave an interview with a local news station about his impression about the bus and eventually the conversation led to his representation in the Senate. The reporter asked his  what he thought of Hatch and Bennett. He answered that he knew Senator Bennett’s father and he “wasn’t worth two cents either.”  He went on to talk about this experience serving in WWII in the Philippines. He felt that the current war in Iraq is completely unjustified and that he felt for the young men and women being sent over there to fight.

Kristin who came to the event, simply commented that over the last eight years, “she has worked very hard and could never get ahead financially and Bush’s financial incentives were useless.”

If Utah represents Bush’s current highest approval rating of any state at 55%, it was the other 45% that came out to see the bus on Tuesday.