Like drama? Check out GOP games

No offense, Bronco Mendenhall, but BYU's spring football game wasn't nearly this exciting.

The offensive star two weeks ago was a freshman running back who touched the ball a grand total of six times. Ooooh.

Far cry from the day when the futures of quarterbacks at Quarterback U. were made or broken in the annual Blue-White scrimmage.

Way more human drama will play out this weekend when 1,200 of your friends and neighbors will make or break the futures of Utah County politicians.

In fact, more games will be played at the Utah County Republican Party convention Saturday at Orem High than are played during an entire NFL season.

The intrigue is pure Grisham: The lost political innocence of a 17-year-old girl. A poll cloaked in secrecy. Allegations of tampering with delegate lists.

It's the kind of year where party leaders will take a break Friday from decorating the convention site so that the credentials committee can hear an official complaint filed by a candidate.

Jackie deGaston has spent the past month poking her thumb in the eye of Senate Majority Leader Curt Bramble in a rematch of a tighter-than-expected race four years ago. DeGaston has repeatedly jabbed Bramble's wife, county party secretary Susie Bramble, and lately has targeted the teenage daughter of the Brambles' good friends, Stan and Becky Lockhart.

If you don't have a scorecard — always important for spring football, political or otherwise — Stan chairs the Utah Republican Party and Becky is a powerful state representative.

DeGaston wants the credentials committee to refuse to seat 17-year-old Hannah Lockhart as a delegate.

Young Lockhart knew she would leave home to start school at BYU during the month between the neighborhood caucus meetings where delegates are selected and the convention where they vote, so she asked Utah County Republican Party Chair Marian Monnahan if she should attend the caucus meeting where she was living. Monnahan told her to go to the one where she would be living when the convention rolled around.

Hannah, who will turn 18 in time for the general election, isn't talking, but deGaston obviously believes the girl will vote for Bramble.

Party bylaws clearly require Republicans to participate in the neighborhood caucus meeting where they live, which would seem to disqualify the girl.

But the bylaws just as clearly don't anticipate someone moving during the month between becoming a delegate and voting at the convention.

"Why should we discriminate against someone if they want to buy a house in a two-week period?" Monnahan says. "I was just using common sense, I thought."

After the election, Monnahan will ask the state party to close the hole in the bylaws.