From Deseret News archives:
No protests expected during Reid's BYU visit
The 15,000 people who packed the Smith Fieldhouse certainly weren't put off by their liberal guest. One student said the anticipation made it seem like the crowd was waiting for a rock star.
At the start of his speech, Kennedy referred to BYU President Ernest L. Wilkinson, a stridently conservative Republican who once took a leave of absence to run as a GOP candidate himself.
"I had a very nice conversation with Dr. Wilkinson," Kennedy said, then paused for laughter. "And I promised him that all Democrats would be off the campus by sundown."
Similar self-deprecation probably would be well-received when U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., speaks today at BYU, where an apparently welcoming, though probably smaller, audience is expected at a University Forum in the Marriott Center at 11 a.m.
There is irony, then, in the fact Reid is the first Mormon to lead his party in Congress and therefore is the highest-ranking Mormon in American political history.
That fact, and Reid's place in the tumult that surrounded Vice President Cheney's controversial visit to BYU six months ago, raised some expectations for fireworks prior to Reid's visit.
Reid's role as one of the Democratic Party's chief critics of the Bush administration is also considered polarizing by many at BYU and in Utah, where support for the president remains among the strongest in the nation.
Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff furnished a good example of that in April, when he spoke at a rally supporting Cheney the day the vice president spoke at BYU's graduation. Reid had just declared that the United States was losing the war in Iraq. Shurtleff responded by dubbing Reid "Hezbollah Harry."
Reid has criticized Bush on other issues, as well. Last week, he used the word "heartless" to describe Bush's veto of a bill to increase funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
Reid also dove into a kerfuffle with conservative radio talk-show icon Rush Limbaugh last week, calling for his resignation.
Recent comments
These comments are very interesting.
It is my understanding that...
bwfedup | Oct. 13, 2007 at 3:47 p.m.
Well don't expect the LDS bigwigs to comment on Reid's...
anonymous | Oct. 12, 2007 at 10:31 a.m.
To manabouttown Oct 9
How did Senator Smoot set off the Great...
COMMON SENSE | Oct. 12, 2007 at 9:53 a.m.
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