I think Utah was sending a rather clear message given overwhelming distribution of votes to Romney. Religion still plays a very strong role in today's politics.
202, have you ever picked up a book and read about Teddy Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan? By your standards Reagan would be considered a bleeding heart liberal, so please spare us the diety rhetoric.
A review of Reagan's presidency doesn't yield the seamlessly conservative record being peddled today. Federal government expanded on his watch. The conservative desire to outlaw abortion was never seriously pursued. Reagan broke with the hardliners in his administration and compromised with the Soviets on arms control. His assault on entitlements never materialized; instead he saved Social Security in 1983. And he repeatedly ignored the fundamental conservative dogma that taxes should never be raised.
Reagan made one of the greatest ideological about-faces in the history of the presidency, agreeing to a $165 billion bailout of Social Security. In almost every way, the bailout flew in the face of conservative ideology. It dramatically increased payroll taxes on employees and employers, brought a whole new class of recipients--new federal workers--into the system, and, for the first time, taxed Social Security benefits, and did so in the most liberal way: only those of upper-income recipients. (As an added affront to conservatives, the tax wasn't indexed to inflation, meaning that more and more people have gradually had to pay it over time
Faced with looming deficits, Reagan raised taxes again in 1983 with a gasoline tax and once more in 1984, this time by $50 billion over three years, mainly through closing tax loopholes for business. Despite the fact that such increases were anathema to conservatives--and probably cost Reagan's successor, George H.W. Bush, reelection--Reagan raised taxes a grand total of four times just between 1982-84.
One could only imagine a proprosal like the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 going over like a lead balloon in this day and age. If Reagan were running for office today, he would have probably already dropped out of the race. If you think Rush and Savage are taking McCain to the wood shed, one can only
imagine what they would be saying about Reagan.