Saturday, October 06, 2012

Happy Conference Weekend!

I've always wondered if President Uchtdorf had the same politics as just about every other German member of the church I've ever met--in other words, if he could vote in the U.S., if he'd regularly vote Democrat.  (And yes, having served a mission in Germany, I've met a ton of German members of the church).

Elder Jensen, who was church historian and is now being released as an active member of the 70 (having aged out), is well known as being a Democrat.  He's received pressure from several people to run for political office in Utah.  A Salt Lake Tribune article on Elder Jensen (an excellent article, by the way), originally stated that even President Uchtdorf had encouraged him to run, according to Elder Jensen's wife.

If that's true, that makes it even more likely Elder Jensen and President Uchtdorf share political views.

Interestingly, I just returned to the article in order to link to it, and the language has been changed from "President Uchtdorf encouraged" to "First Presidency greenlighted."

Elder Jensen isn't planning on a life of politics.  But it's nice there's political diversity at the top.  (And the political diversity hasn't decreased with the retirement of Elder Jensen--Elder EchoHawk, who recently became a Seventy, served in a prominent position under President Obama, and ran for governor of Idaho as a Democrat.  Of course the Mormons in Eastern Idaho chose to vote for a non-Mormon Republican than a future General Authority, but that's a topic for another day).

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