Despite all the talk of change, incumbents prevail

Utah's political party nomination conventions are finished for 2008.

And while there was a possibility of great upheavals in local politics, especially within the Republican Party, in the end it didn't happen.

On the GOP side, where there could have been real changes, with all the conventions over only two legislative incumbents were defeated in their renomination efforts. As expected, GOP Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., coasted to renomination and is a heavy favorite in November. Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, has a new GOP challenger in the 3rd Congressional District — Jason Chaffetz — but Cannon has faced intra-party opponents in five of his seven elections.

What change that came was in only a few legislative races.

Rep. Aaron Tilton, R-Springville, was kicked out of office in Utah County.

And in Salt Lake County, Rep. Sylvia Andersen, R-Sandy, lost to former state Rep. LaVar Christensen.

Neither legislator could lay their intra-party defeats at the feet of private school vouchers. Tilton had bad press over his conflicts of interests in pushing for a new nuclear power plant in southern Utah.

And Christensen was the representative from Andersen's House District 48 before he left the seat in 2006 to run for Congress. No doubt District 48 delegates knew him better than Andersen.

On the Democratic side, Sen. Fred Fife, D-Salt Lake, was defeated by political newcomer and fellow Democrat Luz Robles. Fife is a nice guy but not exactly a political dynamo. Robles, a Hispanic, outworked him and got the support of the district's Hispanic community.

After the March candidate filing deadline, it looked like a number of pro-voucher, conservative legislators could be taken out by intra-party challenges. Some — like Rep. Steve Urquhart's fight against Carmen Snow in St. George for an open GOP-held Senate seat — were clearly tied to the voucher issue.

But after all the convention voting was done — in 29 county conventions and the state conventions — any incumbent push-back because of vouchers had vanished.

And anti-voucher Democrats, Republicans and even independents who may have come into the party nominating system found themselves sitting on the sidelines as the incumbent Republicans rolled to victory.

Outside of the voucher issue, even embattled archconservative Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, won renomination to his district in the Salt Lake County Convention.

Buttars' victory was the real shocker for those who believed that the Utah Republican Party could purge itself of questionable incumbents.