Many thanks to the thankless efforts year after year of Nancy Lord and Mike Ridgeway to remove automatic delegates from the process, stacking of delegates for the incumbents is totally unacceptable in our party,lets level the playing field and stop this practice......

Automatic delegates are the most important issue facing us. All of the other issues such as terrorism, the economy, global warming are secondary.

So now Tad Walsh is a political columnist? I'm always glad to see Bramble gone after, but this is not objective reporting. Tad clearly has an agenda. And this line was just lame: "A wise colleague leaned over to me and said..."

GOP dissidents and outside jokes like to paint the Utah County GOP as a mafia like group moving things through threats, intimidation, lies and manipulation.

Reality is that control within that group comes from a lack of participation and indifference among the general populace.

Tad - you ought to investigate what that lack of participation is doing on the Democratic side of the fence. The Utah County Democratic Party Chair has privately tried to appoint all vacant delegate spots himself and when he found some internal opposition to that he has banned all delegate appointments and "automatic" appointments for contested races. Resulting in only around 20 people getting to vote for their Senate 16 District representative. When you're down to that few people it's very easy to manipulate an outcome.

On the GOP side if people would show up to fill all the delegate positions and stick around for their entire 2 year terms there would be no need to have any appointed delegates. They could also oust delegates they felt were not representing them appropriately.

Less participation means that those who do participate get an amplified voice - either live with it or get involved!

Well said Tad! Thanks for sharing those observations. I was one of those delegates at the convention and was frankly embarrassed by the many uncomfortble visual displays throughout Orem High School that Saturday morning. I feel more and more outnumbered by "extreme" conservatives, egos and pride gone wild, incumbents feeling they deserve an automatic free pass to another term, etc. It is truly disappointing to see such a lack of humility and such an increase in efforts to manipulate to allow a relatively small arrogant few to gain more and more power (i.e. Valentine, Bramble). It is becoming an almost hopeless situation. Perhaps the very credible Ut. Co. Democrat candidates this year for State Legislature will humble many of my fellow Republicans!

"Murderers' Row??"

Give me a break, Tad. The personal agenda here is so obvious.

Dramatic,
Good post. I would love to hear more about what went on during the Democratic Convention. The BYU professor and slate of candidates had impressed me. Does power inevitably corrupt?

I also agree about the need for good people to fill delegate posts. Our precinct had people to spare for the first time in along time this year. But filling the slots wouldn't get rid of the automatic delegates. The Utah County Republican Party Bylaws specifically authorizes the auto delegates from the total number before allocating the remainder to the precincts to elect. Go to utahgop dot org and click on documents, then bylaws. It's Section 2.

I trust some party people, but I believe there is a good ol' boys mutual backscratching network. The rule change authorizing automatic delegates and lowering the threshold to avoid a primary were done in 2000 and 2001 specifically to help favored incumbents.

I read the opinion piece written by Nancy and Mike. It sums up the issue of 'non-elected delegates' in a well-written nutshell. I endorse it fully and hope at some point in time before the state convention ALL state delegates get the opportunity to read this. By the way, the piece was submitted PRIOR to the Utah County convention AND Housekeeper's formal complaint AND the Salt Lake Tribune's brief summary of the topic. The Herald should reconsider this Nancy and Mike's opinion piece and publish it NOW while it is timely and even more relevant.

I hope the "wise colleague" that Tad mentions wasn't Bob Bernick. I imagine Tad and Bob playing rock-paper-scissors to decide who gets to use the "Attila the Hun" metaphor and who gets the "Murderer's Row" one.

If you were to read the DesNews columnists, you'd think that legislators were lining their pockets with millions of taxpayer dollars and that the entire place was going to hell in a hand basket, but instead, we hear from non-partisan organizations that we have the best run state in the US.

Comparing email address access to Attila the Hun is an insult to everyone's intelligence...

And have you ever met Mike Ridgeway? My friend is a delegate and kids crazy phone calls from him. He thinks there's a conspiracy against and he's right. I think everyone is against giving crazy people leadership positions. That's why no one in the party will ever elect him to anything above being a delegate.

Nice hatchet job there on Mike.

Dave's not ambitious enough to run for office so he has to parrot the party line - makes him feel like a tough guy.

Dave seems to be handing legislators all the credit for the hard work of our public employees. Go ahead and ask them how they feel about the legislative supermajority clique.

Even fascists can claim efficiency.