Utah Republican State Convention Report (long)

I received the message by e-mail subscription as a member of RP MeetUp in Utah County. I edited out surnames to protect privacy.

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By David G. (Utah state candidate for national delegate)

Things at this convention, in some ways, did not proceed at all as I had anticipated. And, although we scored a major success in one way, we did not enjoy nearly as much success in another. In any case, here's my convention report, especially for those of you who could not be there...

Beverly [...] and Aaron [...] and I spent the previous evening posting about a dozen Ron Paul Revolution banners around the periphery of UVSC. I didn't finally get to bed until after 2:00AM, which didn't give me much time at all to sleep before waking myself up and returning to UVSC campus at nearly 7:00AM.

Larry Meyers generously allowed me to store a big pile of literature (mostly for Ron Paul) at his Utah Republican Assembly (URA) booth. Unfortunately, there was hardly any room to spare on top of it--so, most of what I brought with me never left its boxes. The URA booth did offer copies of our Republican Liberty Caucus slate to visitors. And Joe Ferguson offered copies of our Defend America slate at his booth. I have no idea who distributed our Sound Money slate.

At first, there was a bit of chaos in how we distributed literature by hand to arriving state delegates. Gradually, we formed an organized effort to assemble "packets" of fliers, each of which included (1) a flier bearing our Consensus (Ron Paul) slate plus a case for opposing binding our national delegation to McCain, (2) a "Dear John" anti-McCain flier, (3) a Republican Liberty Caucus recruitment flier, and (4) fliers that a few individual national delegate candidates (including both me and Carlton Bowen) had developed for themselves. We could have used a parallel effort to assemble and distribute Ron Paul literature packets, which would have kept so much of what I brought from going unused, but it didn't work out. In general, we tried to keep anything to do with Ron Paul directly as separate as possible from anything related to our slate and such. Aaron [...] spent hours attempting to distribute Ron Paul palmcards but faced considerable disinterest from state delegates, if not snide and degrading remarks about Dr. Paul, I hear. Thanks for steadfastly enduring such a tough crowd, Aaron! Our slate was received with much less opposition, thankfully--and, in fact, rather favorably in general. And we got it into the hands of a vast majority of state delegates.

A virtual forest of yard signs surrounded this convention center. I eventually found some folks to post a small bunch of Ron Paul yard signs that I'd brought with me--but too late for quite a few delegates to see. I saw no yard signs for McCain there, although I did spot a number of state delegates wearing McCain stickers. Rogee (?) from Salt Lake County played his drums outside for a bit, boldly displaying his support for Dr. Paul. And I saw a few folks wandering around with Ron Paul rally signs throughout this convention. I hope that we didn't accidentally leave any yard signs there.

I stayed very busy helping to distribute literature until after the main part of the convention began at 10:00AM. I don't know anything about what had transpired during the caucuses for state legislative districts beforehand. As this convention began, convention chair Stan Lockhart took a few moments to talk about the McCain-Romney Presidential slate of national delegates, I heard, trying to ensure that state delegates did not confuse it with our Consensus (Ron Paul) slate.

Before long, the convention divided itself by U.S. Congressional district as delegates in CDs 2 and 3 heard speeches from this year's Republican candidates for U.S. Congress--and then voted upon them in a first of three rounds.

In CD 2, I hear that Ron Paul Republican Brian Jenkins delivered an excellent speech. He survived into a second round of voting, facing both Dew and Cook, before being eliminated. A third round of voting established Bill Dew as the Republican Party's official nominee with 69% of votes.

In CD 3, I heard all five speeches. Stone Fonua's was kinda fun and rather off-beat (and won him only 4 votes, I think), Joe Ferguson's was a solid anti-NAU educational lecture, David Leavitt's consisted of warm-and-fuzzy but vague platitudes about freedom and such (note: stealth neo-con), Jason Chaffetz' was astoundingly good (and clearly the best of the five, in my view) and centered firmly on principles and issues, and Chris Cannon's focused on his experience and accomplishments. Ron Paul Republican Joe Ferguson was eliminated during a first round of voting, while the top vote-getter was not Cannon, surprisingly, but Chaffetz. Chaffetz fared even better in a second round of voting (earning 50%), while facing both Cannon (earning 30%) and Leavitt (earning 20%). At some point after this, Leavitt's horde of campaign volunteers blatantly violated convention rules by suddenly sending lines of his supporters marching across the convention floor holding Cannon signs, eliciting numerous boos. A final round of voting gave Chaffetz 59% and Cannon 41%. With about 10 more votes, Chaffetz would have become the official Republican nominee rather than Cannon; but, since he didn't quite receive 60%, Republican voters will now choose between Chaffetz and Cannon during a primary election in June.

Between each round of Congressional district voting, while votes were being tallied, state delegates met again as a whole to conduct statewide business.

Don Guymon and Christy Henshaw both delivered excellent speeches for national committeman and national committewoman, respectively. I'd hoped that they would both win--but neither did. Very few of our Ron Paul Republican national delegate candidates won election, either. Those three of our slate members who won were both Don Guymon and Larry Meyers for at-large and Brian Jenkins for CD2. Please correct me if I accidentally overlooked anyone. Only 362 (about 10%) of state delegates voted for me, which was about half as many as I apparently needed to win. At some point after these votes were cast and while they were being tallied, state delegates were shown a McCain video inviting them to unite around him. I heard a chorus of rumblings from the floor afterward asking "what about Ron Paul" and calling for "equal time" and such (and one lone person crying "freedooooooom!")--but that was the extent of any opposition that we mounted. A proposed Constitutional amendment to bind our national delegate votes proportionally, rather than by a winner-take-all rule, received clear opposition from party leaders (who asserted that it's more important for our party to determine its nominee as quickly as possible than to worry about things like a candidate receiving 33% of a state's primary votes winning 100% of its delegate votes, which hurt candidates like Romney this year) and failed to muster quite enough delegate support to pass. Party leaders also made absolutely certain to squeeze in their desired by-law change just before the final round of voting in CDs 2 and 3. Although we were rather few in numbers at this convention and our Consensus (Ron Paul) slate received little support from our peers, our desire to see our national delegation remain bound to Romney was nevertheless shared by a clear majority, which soundly defeated this proposed by-law change. So, we at least saw one of our two main goals achieved--our Republican national delegation will vote 100% for Romney on their first ballot, although most of them may vote for McCain afterward in the slim chance that additional ballots are needed.

After defeating this by-law change, state delegates voted for Congressional candidates for their final round (see above) and results were finally announced for votes for national delegates and such (see above). I tried to return to the "Chris Cannon Hospitality Suite" to observe from the visitors' balcony but I was hastily shown the door by a now-less-than-hospitable Mrs. Cannon (?) who made it crystal clear that those who didn't vote for Cannon were not welcome to set foot inside. While I was trying to find a new spot to listen, this convention adjourned, state delegates eagerly exited, and campaigns began to rapidly take down their booths and signs and such.

Some of us lingered on the convention floor to chat for a bit and a few of us proceeded to a nearby Golden Corral to continue talking over dinner. As for myself, I returned home, crawled into my bed as quickly as possible, and enjoyed some desperately-needed rest.

I'm so very grateful for all those who came today to perform their state delegate duties, to campaign for office, to spread good principles, and/or to volunteer to assist with such efforts! And extra-special kudos to [RP MeetUp assistant organizer] Lowell Nelson for all of his diligent work in trying to coordinate our state convention efforts during these last several weeks. You can read more-detailed election results on Utah's GOP's website. And please visit our [RP MeetUp #192] message board if you have additional observations to add, corrections to make, thoughts to contribute, et cetera. And, now, it's time to begin one final phase of our work for Ron Paul here in Utah...