MJB Leadership

I arrived at the Utah County Republican Convention this morning at 7:00 AM and found the Salem Hills High School parking lot completely full.  (A friend who arrived at 6:30 reported a full parking lot.)  I tweeted a picture of all of the political signs in front of the entrance this morning.  It looked like some grand sign-maker had thrown up a patriotic pallet of posters for the candidates.  I signed in, received my bracelet and my credentials and pushed my way through a very crowded gymnasium hoping for a glance of and a word with a few of the local candidates.  I had the opportunity to meet several candidates again , which helped somewhat in my decision process.  I saw a number of friends who are first-time attendees at the convention.  In fact, it seemed like there were a lot of first-timers there today.  I was told that the central committee was 60% first-timers.  It is so good to see so many new people getting involved in the political process!  Our precinct attendance was 100%.

Legislative District 60 had 118/123 delegates in attendance.  Candace Salima was in charge of our meeting.  After speeches by the three candidates for State House we held the first vote the results were: Dana Layton: 44%, Brad Daw: 39%, Jacob Siebach: 16% (roughly).  That means that Mr. Siebach was eliminated from the competition.  We were voting to see if there would be a primary election for Republicans.  A primary is avoided if one candidate receives 60% of the delegate vote.  The result of the second vote was: Dana Layton: (60 votes) 49%, Brad Daw: (62 votes) 51%.  Therefore, our legislative district will have a primary vote.  I believe that is the best outcome.

Governor Herbert spoke to us about the good things happening in Utah--always ready to campaign.  "Experts" have deemed Utah the best state in the US for businesses.  This because under his direction, we eliminated 300+ anti-business laws and taxes. Following Governor Herbert, Brad Daw stood up to speak while the final vote was being tallied and was great, despite the outcome of the first vote.  I was very impressed by his calm and cool in the face of being voted out of office. 

During the main convention officials announced that the County had 96% attendance!  I have never seen this kind of enthusiastic commitment from our community before.  I attended every County Convention and a couple State Conventions over about 10 years and  saw a lot of apathy previously.  We heard from almost every other candidate running for state office while votes were being counted for the County Commissioner election.  We voted three times to narrow down the candidates.  The County Commissioner election ended without a 60% majority so there will be a primary between Lorn Grierson and Larry Ellertson.

I have decided that competition is especially good in politics.  A candidate running unopposed starts to lose the connection between his record and his constituents.  Competition makes a candidate accountable.

The Utah County Republican Convention has changed since my last time attending eight years ago.during the time that I participated previously, the conventions were more interactive and wild.  It used to be that anyone with an agenda and a working knowledge of Robert's Rules of Order could and would make an attempt to hijack some part of the convention.  This year, it was very civil and well-organized.  The meeting stayed on task and finished pretty close to on time.  It was a good experience this year.