That Levi Tilleman sure seems to turn heads. The Democratic political newcomer and energy expert isn’t even a declared candidate yet in the 2018 race for Colorado’s 6th Congressional District; he’s only set up an exploratory committee as he considers a run against five-term Republican incumbent Mike Coffman. Yet, he has stirred media buzz, including a number of mentions, some in-depth, by our news organization alone.

But how about a feature-length, warm-and-fuzzy treatment by a newspaper in Utah? Writing for the state’s second-largest daily, the Salt Lake City-based Deseret News, Opinion Editor Hal Boyd gives Tillemann the royal treatment – almost in so many words – in a piece titled, “Hal Boyd: Mormon political royalty run in Colorado.”

Tillemann, who hails from a storied Mormon family in Colorado was indeed raised a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Though his Wikipedia page now notes, “… Levi left the faith when he was unable to reconcile the logical and liberal outlook his parents had instilled in him with perceived inconsistencies in church doctrine,” it seems to be the Mormon angle that caught the attention of the LDS Church-owned publication.

Boyd’s column, which appeared late last month but just caught our attention the other day, notes:

Deseret News readers were introduced last month to the Coloradan gubernatorial candidate Doug Robinson, a husband, father of five and a successful Republican businessman who also happens to be Gov. Mitt Romney’s nephew.

Few, however, are familiar with Levi Tillemann, a scion from yet another of Mormondom’s most fascinating political families who announced this week that he’s vying for Colorado’s 6th Congressional District.

A wunderkind clean-energy consultant and a former Department of Energy adviser for the Obama administration, Tillemann hopes to unseat the district’s Republican incumbent, U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman. Armed with a Yale degree and a Johns Hopkins Ph.D., the 35-year-old Democrat announced an exploratory committee this week and plans to begin a listening tour throughout the community.

Boyd goes on to glowingly profile several generations of Tillemann’s extended family, going over lore already familiar to plenty of Coloradans – including that his grandmother was Nancy Dick, Colorado’s first woman lieutenant governor, and that his grandfather was the late California congressman and Holocaust survivor Tom Lantos.

It’s an interesting read, at least in part because of what it seems to say about the view from the epicenter of Boyd’s “Mormondom” of political candidates and officeholders who hail from their culture. Even if they don’t necessarily practice the faith anymore. Concludes Boyd:

While you’re unlikely to see Tillemann attending a local Latter-day Saint congregation these days, he nonetheless credits his Mormon upbringing and his Latter-day Saint family with some of his most cherished values, especially his belief in the importance of community and the need for families and individuals of all different backgrounds to come together to help each other become better, more productive citizens.

That was the ethos of the congregation in which he was raised. Now, he’d like to bring that philosophy to the nation’s capital.