What should Mitt Romney say in his impossible-to-live-up-to-the-hype speech in Texas tomorrow? Noah Millman puts some fine words into the governor’s mouth here:
“This is the place.” That’s what Brigham Young said when he came to the valley of the Great Salt Lake for the first time. I don’t know if he heard him say it, but my grandfather’s grandfather was there, so he might have. The man who had led his people through the wilderness had come to the spot where he, and they, would build their permanent homes. It’s a great American story. A group of hardy pioneers, setting off westward to find a place where they could live according to their consciences and reap the fruit of their own labor. But it’s a unique story, too, because my ancestors weren’t leaving Europe to make their new life. They were leaving America. Forty nine years – seven weeks of years – after Brigham Young spoke those words, when the Utah territory became the state of Utah, my grandparents’ generation became fully party of the United States of America again.
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