GOP chairman's race unusual this year

Several hundred state Republican Party delegates will pick a new chairman Saturday to oversee Utah's major political party for the next two years.

I say "chairman" because the only woman originally in the race, current GOP national committeewoman Nancy Lord, has dropped out of the contest.

Leaving the post is former GOP congresswoman Enid Greene.

This year's chairman's race is unique — Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., after trying to get one or two people to run for the party post, but failing, has decided not to endorse any of the candidates.

Historically, the major GOP officeholder who faces re-election in the second year of a chairman's tenure has a large say in who that chairman is. While it's true that the delegates pick the chairman and other party officers, they have given way to the top Republican's pick.

That's because in Utah, where Republicans outnumber Democrats two-to-one, the major candidate's re-election campaign often coordinates activities and spending with the state party. And it just figures that the officeholder wants someone running the party he can get along with.

Party insiders say that Huntsman bungled the party's chairmanship race this year — first backing one man who ultimately didn't file, then pushing another fellow to run, who also turned him down.

Whatever the case, Huntsman threw his hands up several weeks ago and said he wouldn't back anyone for chairman this year, and may the best candidate win.

So, we have an open race in Saturday's convention at the South Towne Expo Center, with the candidates being: Stan Lockhart, a former Utah County party chair and current well-known lobbyist; Steve Harmsen, former Salt Lake City commissioner and former Salt Lake County councilman; local businessman Aaron Bludworth; and lesser-known party grass-roots workers Chris Laurence and Ronald Levine.

Greene says she's trying to retire party debt left over from the 2006 elections of around $150,000. She's already given $50,000 to the party herself.

Greene, then vice chairwoman, took over from three-term GOP chairman Joe Cannon, who resigned after the 2006 elections and was soon named the new editor of the Deseret Morning News.

Greene had worked hard in the party, using her internal political effort to rehabilitate herself after the disastrous political and personal melt-down of 1995-96, a campaign finance scandal involving herself (in her first term in the U.S. House from the 2nd District) and her then-husband, Joe Waldholtz.