This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The love of "Hamilton" can bridge even the chasm within Utah politics.
A quintet of Utah politicians — three Republicans and two Democrats — teamed up to do their "carpool karaoke" version fo the Broadway hit, in a video posted Wednesday on YouTube.
The video starts with Utah Speaker of the House Greg Hughes, R-Draper, picking up Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams, a Democrat, for a meeting. After some banter — in which McAdams trumpets the virtues of carpooling and Hughes accuses McAdams of trying to "mooch off of my gas under the banner of clean air" — the pair start singing along to Lin-Manuel Miranda's hip-hop history lesson.
Soon, they drive by the new Eccles Theater (where "Hamilton" will play in 2017) and pick up three more pols: Reps. Kim Coleman and Ken Ivory, both R-West Jordan, and Sen. Jim Dabakis, D-Salt Lake City. More singing and banter ensues.
As the video plays through, a viewer may note a few things:
• McAdams doesn't know the play as well as Hughes or Ivory.
• Hughes is rocking the postal-carrier shorts.
• Dabakis is a ham. (But everyone knew that already, right?)
• Hughes picks McAdams up at the Utah State Capitol, which means they are driving around in a circle for the whole video.
• James Corden, who started this whole "carpool karaoke" thing, is not losing any sleep.