Oh yes…summer starts tomorrow and the political world is starting to heat up just a little!

For the past several Mondays, The Western Word has looked at some of the political stories that caught our attention over the weekend and then placed them in one place for all to see.  Of course, I offer some commentary on each and maybe some sarcasm.

I know it’s Monday and it’s tough to get yourself rolling today – so take a break and grab something to drink with caffeine in it and read this week’s edition of Monday Morning Politics!  Today I look at the Republican Leadership Conference, Mormons, Political Practices, Tea Party, the GOP Convention and much more! 

Republican Leadership Conference (RLC):

I guess the RLC got more than they bargained for with Barack Obama impersonator Reggie Brown.  Brown was “ushered off the stage after he mocked the Republican presidential hopefuls and joked about the real president’s biracial roots…”  You can read the story HERE.  A video clip is HERE.

Some of it was really funny…

Support for a Mormon:

According to a new poll from Gallup, “Though the vast majority of Americans say they would vote for their party’s nominee for president in 2012 if that person happens to be a Mormon, 22% say they would not, a figure largely unchanged since 1967.”

Republicans Mitt Romney and John Huntsman are both Mormons.   Learn more about the poll HERE.

Montana Commissioner of Political Practices:

It seems the folks on the Helena Independent Record editorial board agree with me about the office. From their Sunday editorial:

If the office is to maintain credibility with the lawmakers and candidates it oversees, as well as with the public at large, it needs to be as independent as possible from actual or perceived political bias. Hiring a recently termed-out legislator, especially one with recent political aspirations, doesn’t do much to help that cause.

You can read the full editorial HERE.  I like my analogy that the office is like the referees in a Harlem Globetrotters basketball game…

Montana GOP Convention:

Drinking.  Food.  Speeches.  Tea.  Butte America!  More drinking.   Congrats to GOP Chairman Will Deschamps for being re-elected Chairman of the Montana GOP.  Reports say that “Deschamps of Missoula rolled to a decisive 139-40 victory Saturday over tea party activist Mark French of Paradise to win re-election as chairman of the Montana Republican Party.”

Deschamps is a veteran.  Veterans will play a major part in the 2012 election, especially in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House races.

Ironically the election of Deschamps was the biggest story to come out of the convention.

The Montana GOP needs the Tea Party vote to win.  Denny Rehberg is a member of the House Tea Party Caucus.  I imagine you could cut the tension with a knife between the main-stream GOP members and the Tea Party folks…you sure don’t want them to take their ball and go home.

The speeches from the candidates (Denny Rehberg for Senate, Steve Daines for House, and several candidates for Governor) failed to get very much coverage from the media in the state.  The @MontanaGOP Twitter account was silent during the convention.

Voices of Montana:

The host of the Voices of Montana state-wide radio show, Aaron Flint, headed to Minneapolis over the weekend to cover the Right Online (#RO11) convention.  It was fun to read his tweets from the convention, and I’m sure we’ll hear more from him about the convention this week on his radio show.

Sadly, Flint has now surpassed me with followers on Twitter (@aaronflint) after his little sojourn to the land of 10,000 lakes.  I’ll catch back up!  Since I don’t have a state-wide radio show to promote me on Twitter, you can help by following me @TheWesternWord.

Montana’s Unemployment Rate:

Something that was probably not highly discussed at the GOP convention was unemployment because most people attending the convention have jobs.

If you checked the headlines from around the state, you’d think everything is OK in the working world.  The unemployment rate for Montana is 7.3% for May.  Most reports used the word “steady” to characterize the unemployment rate.

You can read a story about the “steady” rate of unemployment HERE.

Before You Start Working Again:

That’s it for this weekend’s updates – be sure to follow me on Twitter (@TheWesternWord) for updates and check The Western Word every day of the week for my columns!