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2006 Utah State Republican Convention Report

Lots of signs at the entrance (click to enlarge)

I attended the State Republican Party Convention today (photos). I spent some time roaming the convention hall taking pictures and talking to old friends. The convention hall itself was very crowded and there weren’t enough seats and people started placing seats in the hall. The fire marshall threatened to shut the convention down. I sat in the press section—no one seemed to mind, but then I had a camera and a Mac, so I fit right in.

There were crowds around Cannon everytime I saw him (click to enlarge)

The opening prayer was from the SL Interfaith Roundtable. It was more of a speech than a prayer, but it was a reminder of what we ought to be grateful for and how we should behave. The singing of the National Anthem was pretty good—that’s not always the case.

Curtis Bramble made the credentials report. There was a challenge to a precinct chair’s status as a delegate (Reagan from Salt Lake County). The State Party removed him as a delegate, but didn’t have the authority to remove him as a county delegate or precinct chair since those a SL County Party matters. By party by-laws, the precinct chair appoints a replacement. Mr. Reagan then reappointed himself. Funny, huh? The report was that there are 3478 authorized delegates. At 10am, 2684 had reported in. At 11:30 there were 3136 delegates, over 90%.

There’s a lot of minutiae about rules and amendments. Some people, as you can imagine, get very upset when the rules are followed exactly even when the intent was something different. When the votes are held, there’s always some group who votes “nay” and they’re usually up front. They come early get good seats. The better to heckle. Most of the delegates just want to do their duty and go home. Joe Cannon has a thankless job.

Enid Greene - Large and in charge (click to enlarge)

There was a big debate on an amendment that would make delegate selection rules a County issue. That’s the way it’s been done on a de facto basis, but there’s been opposition to it by a vocal group for five years or more. There’s some room in that process for abuse since a County could decide to have automatic delegates, etc. This amendment was an attempt to decide this question and put it in the party constitution so that the endless wrangling over the issue can be put to rest. Enid Greene (Vice Chair) was conducting this business. There was a whole lot of gavel pounding and even a threat to remove people wouldn’t be quiet.

The question was called and the chair ruled that the motion failed. Naturally, someone called for a division. During the division, there were more total votes than there were credentialed delegates, so we were going to do it again, but someone suggested we just write the vote on the back of the Senate ballot. So, those were hand counted. In the end, even with a call for division, the amendment failed. So, looks like we’ll continue discussion this in the coming years.

The press shows that it love Macs (click to enlarge)

Right as we were counting votes for this amendment, Bryan Schott from KCPW showed up. I was in his seats, but he let me stay for a while. They were broadcasting the event live. While I was sitting there, some woman walked past, pointed at me, and yelled something. I couldn’t make out what she said. Weird.

One of the biggest controversies of the convention was that Michael Ridgway, one of the candidates for US Senate was served with a restraining order requiring that he keep his distance from Mark Towner. There was some question as to whether Ridgeay could attend the convention and obey the order. He came anyway— someone told me he had a video camera and was trying to get people to argue with him. He spent his time before the candidates talking about party rules and delegate responsibilities. I got the impression he ran for Senate just so he’d have 8 minutes to speak to the convention.

Overall, the speeches by the candidates for Senate were pretty boring. Jenkins has a good sense of humor. Ronald Levine kept referring to his mailer. He spoke to softly—there didn’t seem to be any fire in him. He was just plain boring. Like it or not, a lot of the same factors that helped get kids elected class president in high school are in play here as well.

Sen Bennett addresses the convention (click to enlarge)

Sen. Bennett nominated Hatch. Orrin said all the right things, mostly touching on immigration—seal the borders, no blanket amnesty, reduce gas prices, no nuclear waste in Utah, judicial appointments, affordable health care, simplified tax system, support our troops, fight liberals, blah, blah, blah. At least he knows how to give a political speech—stick to motherhood and apple pie. When you’re the incumbent, the worst thing you can do is take a position. At the end of the speech, many in the audience gave him a standing ovation. Orrin will win this handily. I wish we were still fighting for Steve Urquhart.

Sometimes being a ballot boy is lonely (click to enlarge)

We broke into districts to hear the congressional candidate speeches. I took advantage of the break to give blood. The speeches in the House races, at least in the Third District, were a little more impassioned than those by the Senate candidates. I could hear some of the Second District speeches while I was giving blood and they seemed more heated as well. Not surprisingly, immigration was the hot topic.

By the time the voting was closed on the first ballot and the keynote speeches had begun, it was after 2pm We heard from Sen. Bennett, Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, Lt Governor Gary Herbert, Gov Jon Huntsman, and finally John McCain. Gov. Huntsman introduce Sen. McCain and told the story of how he’d been offered a chance to leave early and had refused until everyone who’d been captured before him had had a chance to go home. I thought how often decisions of character, made in stressful situations, are often the most important we could make.

Sen. John McCain addresses the Utah State Republican Convention (click to enlarge)

Sen. McCain opened with a bunch of jokes. They were pretty funny. He recounted what he said to Jay Leno when he asked him if he’d consider being Vice President: “I was in a Vietnamese prison camp for 5.5 years, kept in the dark and fed scraps. Why would I want to do that all over again?”

McCain talked about government spending. He cited a study of the DNA of bears in Montana as “pork” and said “I’m not sure why we have to study the DNA of bears.” This shows amazingly little appreciation for how science works and what it takes to make the basic scientific progress that our innovation depends on. That’s very scary for someone who wants to be president.

He spoke on immigration. He said: “we have to fix our borders, then we have to create a guest worker program, then we have to decide what to do about the illegal immigrants who are already here.”

McCain said that Iran is the second biggest treat (next to the war on terror) that faces the US. He agrees with Pres. Bush’s strategy. He said we have to support Israel.

On Iraq, McCain acknowledged that the American people are frustrated by Iraq. We make mistakes in every war. That alone is a good reason to avoid war. War is a terrible thing. But we must win in Iraq. We cannot fail. Success is economic development, a secure environment, forming a government, and the Iraqi military taking charge. The consequences of failure in Iraq are that we will be fighting these same people somewhere else—possibly on our own continent. This is a titanic struggle between good and evil.

At the end of his speech, McCain received a standing ovation by the delegates.

Chairman Joe Cannon announced the results of the voting. For US Senate, Hatch got 78% of the vote and will be the party’s candidate in November. In District 2, LaVar Christensen got 84% of the vote and will be the party’s candidate. In District 3, there is a run-off between Chris Cannon and John Jacobs and so we have a run-off ballot. The final vote didn’t give either Jocobs or Cannon enough of the vote to avoid a primary, so they’ll face each other in June.

Posted by windley on May 13, 2006 05:10 PM

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Comments

Posted by: RolandDevine at May 14, 2006 12:21 AM