In this Sunday Edition, members of the Coffee Party discuss their goal of bringing everyone, regardless of political affiliation, together for civil discussions. Also, the results from a new poll focused on the issues that are most important to Utahns this election season.

Segment 1: Coffee Party

The Tea Party movement has caused quite a shake up this election season. They've already unseated several prominent Republicans during the primaries, including Utah's own Sen. Bob Bennett. There are some who believe the Tea Party is creating even more divisiveness in this country. In response, they've formed their own non-partisan party.

Sunday Edition is joined by two members of the Coffee Party, Jenny Pathak, leader of the movement in Utah, and Daniel Donahoe, a member of the national support team.

The Coffee Party was started in March of 2010 in response to the Tea Party and with the goal of civil discourse.

"We wanted to have civility in our conversations, to kind of set the tone in the political dialogue," explains Pathak. "We agree that the government is not the enemy of the people. We are a part of the government and so it is our responsibility to participate and be active in the government."

The focus is on changing political dialogue, not necessarily on affecting policy change.

Related:

Coffee Party aims for more civility

The Coffee Party, formed in response to the Tea Party movement, is out to promote civil discourse when it comes to American politics.

"I don't know that we really have an agenda of political change but we just hope to change the rhetoric so that we can have a better discourse," Donahoe says.

While many members of the Tea Party feel angry about current politics, the Coffee Party focuses on staying calm and looking at issues objectively.

"We fight feeling angry," Donahoe explains. "So we attend these events, such as Utah Freedom Conference in order to see what people are feeling and to have a discourse among ourselves. And we're a grass-roots organization so we have people of different views and that's a good thing because we can talk about the conservative if they're liberal or the liberal view if they're conservative and try to come to a more rational point of view and avoid anger and fear."

"I think the Coffee Party gives us that opportunity to say 'Let's sit down,'" says Pathak. "It's not necessarily about the coffee, it's about the discussion. Let's sit down and talk about these issues, let's find more data, let's find more information. And when we get into these conversations with people of different, I'm going to say, ‘labels,' -- you know, the Republicans and Democrats -- we find we agree a lot more than we disagree. We respect the complexity and the intricacies of the issues."

Segment 2: Election Focus

A recent KSL/Deseret News poll by Dan Jones and Associates focused on the priorities of Utah voters, asking what is most important to you about education, the economy, immigration, government spending and state's rights. The survey asked about solutions to these five issues and found some predictable and some interesting opinions.

Kirk Jowers, director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics, and Randy Shumway, of Dan Jones and Associates, join Sunday Edition to discuss the results.

In the gubernatorial race, Gov. Gary Herbert is leading.

"Gov. Herbert is leading by 21 points. He is leading most significantly with those most interested with the upcoming election, those that are most conservative, those that most support the Tea Party, as well as active LDS," explains Shumway. "What's troubling for Peter Corroon is, where he is currently a well respected, well-known mayor, in Salt Lake County he is only leading by a few percentage points. Most suggest that in order for Peter Corroon to win the gubernatorial election, he's got to win Salt Lake County by 20 points."

Corroon is trying to put a dent in the race with the recent controversial UDOT payoff settlement and by focusing on campaign contributions, but will it be enough?

Jowers believes that neither issue is sticking at this point, "but I think he is trying to lay as many traps as he can so that if something hits, they've got a pathway to try to pull those points down."

In the race for U.S. Senate, Mike Lee is the front runner.

"Mike Lee is leading by 27 points, and unlike the gubernatorial election where there are some areas where Peter Corroon is leading, there are very few areas where Sam Granto is leading," Shumway says. "In fact, in Salt Lake County, Mike Lee is even leading by several percentage points."

According to Jowers, at this point in the race Granato does not have much of a chance of winning.

"It appears to be absolutely no chance right now and it's because, as Randy said, he starts off with probably about a 20-point deficit just because of the Republican/Democrat makeup. You add to that that this is probably going to be a Republican year. You look nationwide, as well as locally, at the enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats. It's not 2008, when Republicans looked like endangered species. It's 2010 and Democrats are under fire. And then finally, you look personally what is Mr. Granato doing? Is he raising a lot of money, is he hitting on an issue, does he have a huge grass-roots network? Any of those kind of invisible indicators where you could make up a scenario, and I just can't do it."

Jim Matheson, as a Democrat, would have had a better chance than other Democrats in either the senatorial or gubernatorial if he had chosen to run, says Jowers.

"Matheson is a force in this state," says Jowers. "Matheson has statewide name identification, statewide approvals. He's not seen, as we saw in the primary, as a true Democrat, and so he doesn't take the hit that most Democrats are taking. And he's also a very good fundraiser, very good communicator, has a great family name. So he has everything intangible. So he would be a force in either race."

The poll examined what Utahns want from public education.

"The number one solution across all of the 50 solutions for the different priorities was in education and that was resources should be applied such that every third-grader's reading at grade level by the conclusion of 3rd grade. The second most important solution within education was that resources should be applied such that at least 80 percent of eighth-graders were successfully completing Algebra 1 and biology," describes Shumway. "The good news for that is that voters understand the importance of education and they want to focus on the outcomes, the learning outcomes. They want to raise the bar, they want our students having the opportunity to excel in manners that they previously haven't been able to."

Most candidates are being very general in their support of education, but Corroon's education initiative could help him on Election Day, says Jowers.

The poll looked at another hot topic: government spending. An overwhelming number of people believe government spending needs to be brought under control.

"The focus is on federal spending and if we do a 180 and go back to predicting who may or may not win in the upcoming election, we are seeing a particular bias against the ‘encroachment' of the federal government on state's rights, an overreaching, an excessive inefficiency. And we're seeing that again in this poll, in that the vast majority of active voters feel like the federal government is overreaching, they're spending way too much," Shumway says. "The top two solutions surrounding the economy are for the federal government to decrease spending and for the federal government to pass a balanced budget amendment."

Jowers believes Republican candidates are addressing this issue.

"I think all of the Republican candidates spend a lot of time talking about out of control federal spending, balanced budget amendment, all of those are kind of common refrains in any setting where they are speaking," says Jowers.

Segment 3: Coming up on Sunday Edition

Next week, Sunday Edition begins its election series, "Conversations with the Candidates" with candidates of Utah's 3rd Congressional District, Jason Chaffetz and Karen Hyer.

Through the month of October, tune to Sunday Edition to hear from candidates for major political office in Utah.

• Oct. 3: 3rd Congressional District candidates
• Oct. 10: 1st Congressional District candidates
• Oct. 17: Utah gubernatorial race
• Oct. 24: U.S. Senate race
• Oct. 31: 2nd Congressional District candidates