Support Kael Weston’s

candidacy for Congess

10-15-2020

Kael Weston is a man with a skill set that uniquely qualifies him for  Congress. I ask my fellow voters in Utah’s sprawling 2nd Congressional District to consider supporting him in this fall’s election.

Weston served for a decade as a diplomat in the U.S. State Department. In that role, he spent seven consecutive years, between 2003 and 2010, on the front lines in two volcanic war zones: first in Iraq and then in Afghanistan.

After he returned home to Utah, he wrote an arresting book about his experiences, titled “The Mirror Test.” Few congressional candidates have laid out their life stories, and their hearts, as Weston has in this book. He doesn’t shy away from revealing his most searing moments.

He writes about the many tightropes he had to walk in his counterinsurgency efforts as the State Department’s man, its only man, in extreme hot spots. In Fallujah and Sadr City in Iraq, and in Khost and Helmand in Afghanistan, Weston had to develop ties with local sheikhs, mullahs and community leaders — courageous collaborators with the Americans in the face of daily danger from al Qaeda (Iraq) and Taliban (Afghanistan) terrorists.

All the while, Weston had to keep faith with his countrymen, Marine generals and “grunts” alike, who sometimes wondered whether his diplomatic gambits might endanger them. And in walking those thin lines, he made friends — and lost them in warfare — on both sides.

With this background, Weston is well-equipped to go to Washington and bridge the great divide in Congress. He is practiced in the art of listening and finding common ground. He is certainly more skilled at it than is Chris Stewart, his opponent in this fall’s race and a knee-jerk supporter of Trumpian division. This is an opportunity to be represented by a serious unifier: Kael Weston.

   Thank you,

        Lex Hemphill