Utah State Republican Convention 2008

The Utah State Republican Convention was an interesting experience to add to my experiences in the political arena. A couple of months ago I ran and was elected as the Chairman of the LE18 precinct. With this position, I became a state and county delegate. This is the first time I've been involved in this level of government.

Before all the organized fun began, I was asked to help hand out FreeCapitalist Primers. This is a book that was compiled by C. Rick Koerber and has been one of the most influential works in my life. As I began handing these books out freely to people entering the premises, I began to realize that without an explanation of it's value it was usually taken as just another free handout worth only it's cost. I even saw a few of these books in the garbage with the hundreds of fliers also handed out freely.

The convention started out as an average organized meeting. Pledge, National Anthem, Report and adoption of rules, then with very little excitement we were dismissed to break into our separate districts. I'm in district two. The candidates that had limited recognition and obviously serious campaigns were Merrill Cook and Bill Dew. Based on name recognition and it's related possible benefit to beat Jim Matheson, I was planning on voting for Cook. After talking with his family at his booth and tearing apart his address to us before voting, I decided to put all I had behind Bill Dew. It also helped that one of his volunteers bought me a Mt. Dew when I told him to "Do the Dew" (that's a joke - that that had any deciding influence, but he did buy me a dew).

After casting my vote for this first round, we headed over to Congressman Cannon's booth where Parents for Choice in Education had announced a pizza party for the FreeCapitalists for our support for them on the voucher issue and Referendum 1 recently.

We then resumed with speeches by the State candidates. The new candidate running for governor had an impressive stance on the proper role of government. I logged into my email and read his communications to all the delegates. What a stance! Then one of my associates alerted me to an email he sent out presenting his plan to build an army of robots to build us (members of his club) everything we're dreaming of... What the heck is up with that? I voted for him and was pleasantly surprised to find that he got around 30% of the vote. Imaging if a candidate that really wanted to run would understand and campaign on those principles... I was impressed with Mark Walker's campaign primarily because of the endorsements he had consisting of people I respect and with whom I share common standards.

The results came back about the congressional vote. Both Districts 2 and 3 would have to vote again. In District 2, the candidates were Cook, Dew, and Jenkins. In 3 it was Cannon, Leavitt and Chaffetz. So we prepared to vote again. It took like 30 minutes to get the freaking poll people to look into the poll boxes to ensure it was a fair vote. What took them all so long??? Slackers...

Then our current senators spoke, first Bennett (because of a plane scheduling) and then Hatch. Bennett was more of a cheerleader for McCain than anything. No substance to his remarks. Hatch got lots of cheers because he actually said something worthwhile in his address. They then showed a Mark Shurtleff video. I like Mark, but can not understand why someone not being contested for his position gets 20 minutes to show a video and address the delegates. I believe that it was just to pass the time for the votes to be counted. They also showed a McCain video which prompted a plethora of calls for a Ron Paul video to be shown. Of course, no such video was displayed, only serious candidates get time... ;) -just a joke Brandon...

Before the second vote came back, I heard the announcement that Leavitt was backing Cannon. The results came back that Leavitt got like 15%, Cannon got like 35% and Chaffetz got like 50%. Leavitt tried to throw his votes behind Cannon in a last-ditch effort to keep Chaffetz from getting the 60% he needed to avoid a primary election. I'm not sure the reasoning, but as a Cannon supporter, I was pleased with that decision.

Next thing I knew weird stuff started happening. Volunteers in Leavitt shirts started parading down the aisles holding Congressman Cannon signs. Many of the audience started applauding and many others were booing and heckling these volunteers. Howard Stephenson started shouting complaints against these demonstrations. The speaker immediately commanded that these individuals leave the floor, that they were out of order. It took some time for that to sink into the movement, but they did. As they were wrapping up regular business before doing the third vote, Leavitt volunteers wrote "Leavitt supports Chris Cannon for Congress" on a sign and displayed it above and left of the stage. As this got attention of the delegates, the speaker again instructed these people to cease this action and called for security to enforce it. This happened. Soon thereafter, Congressman Cannon took a leisurely stroll down the right aisle of the convention floor. This brought loads of applause, booing, and heckling. It was obvious that this was a very tense moment of the day. He was ordered to leave the floor also. Who the heck is this speaker that thinks he has authority to bully these legitimate actions.

We then voted for the third round and were shortly after, dismissed. I went directly to the stage and inquired of the speaker about the rule that granted him authority to simply dismiss these demonstrations as "out of order". He displayed for me the convention rules specifically section 3:d under signage which reads:
d) No signs may be placed in or around the staging area of the arena or in the convention hall between bleachers in the main Assembly Hall, expect as approved by the State Party.

You decide for yourself if this disallows people to parade in the aisles with signs and/or hang a banner over the side of the upper level, and/or have a candidate stroll down the side of the auditorium. I'm definitely not convinced. Many upset Chaffetz and Leavitt supporters afterward were calling these moves "dirty politics". That they were intentionally breaking the rules because they knew they'd get away with it. I disagree. The rules had nothing to do whatsoever against these actions. If someone is convinced otherwise, please demonstrate for me what rule would disallow these things.

End of the day, Cannon will be up against Chaffetz in the Primary in June because of the third vote's results of 59%vs41%. Bill Dew won 69%. Those were the more hotly contested contests. For me, this was an incredible learning experience and one I'll be able to prepare better for in the future and help prepare others as well.

Call to action:
If you're in District 3, get out and vote in the June primaries.
For everyone, do your research and go prepared to the polls in November.

Delegates, good work today! Thanks for your willingness to sacrifice your Saturday to do your part to help protect our freedoms, liberty and justice for all.