Monday, May 10, 2010

2010 State Nominating Convention

I don't think I can add much more about this convention, since it was covered thoroughly by the state and national media. You can even watch the speeches on youTube. It will be interesting to see how the shock-waves coming out of Salt Lake City will affect the nation. Many people have said that the Tea Party movement has taken over the Republican party. Is that a bad thing? But to be perfectly clear, the Tea Party Movement is not a political party. It is a grassroots movement that believes government has bitten off more than it can chew, that it has taxed us enough, and it is not fulfilling it's main duties (like defending our nation, which would be to protect our borders, etc.).

Back to the convention ...
The final count of delegates present was 3452 of 3490. That is truly amazing to have so many delegates there, nearly 99%. What is even more amazing is that probably half of them were first timers and when there was a motion on the floor to adjourn the meeting early before all the proposed amendments and resolutions were heard, no one would even 2nd the motion. It was truly incredible. This is never the case at our county meetings. If anyone motions to adjourn, no matter how far through the agenda we are, someone will always 2nd it and the majority of the body will agree. Way to go, State Delegates!

Some of the interesting things that came out of the speeches:
  • Mitt Romney was there to support Bob Bennett. I am a huge Mitt Romney supporter and was thrilled that he was there.
  • Leonard Fabiano talked about the Renaissance of Liberty and wants 2 delegates for every 400 delegates to teach a 6 week course on the "2000 Year Leap." Excellent idea!
  • David Chiu said everyone should read Mitt Romney's book "Turnaround." I also loved this quote of David's: "America is worth whatever it takes!"
  • Mike Ridgeway promoted his website: mikeonamission.com
  • Neil Walter's cousin's son, 12 year old, Seleck Rigby gave the best speech of the day as he did the introduction for Neil.
  • Morgan Philpot talked about how his political capital is ours
  • Jason Chaffetz seemed not his usual self at the beginning of his speech, but stepped it up at the end and talked about the 3 things we must do: 1) Fire Nancy Pelosi 2) Get rid of Harry Reid 3) Make sure Barrack Obama is a one term president.
  • Mike Lee blew his 2nd speech. We were all shocked that he would come out and be so negative. I have heard how the campaign trail can get to you and how sometimes you just want to be defensive towards all the crap that is flying at you, but it really was the wrong approach at this meeting. However, having Jim DeMint endorse Mike via prerecorded broadcast was brilliant.
I had a great time visiting with friends and meeting lots of new people. It was amazing how diverse the votes were even amongst the people around me, in our Utah County section all the way in the back!

9 of us got some dinner before we headed home and I was rather surprised by how the voting went. Those that voted for Tim in round 1, voted for Tim all 3 times. 2 people who originally voted for Mike in the beginning later voted for Tim. They didn't say, but I would guess Mike's negative speech had something to do with it. I think those that voted for Cherilyn split between Mike and Tim.

Overall it was a great convention. Dave Hansen managed a well run meeting and the balloting for nearly 3500 people went surprisingly quick. The convention overall was really long, but still rather enjoyable!

RESULTS

Multi-County State House and Senate Districts by Acclamation:
Results for Round 1 (only balloting for Senate race):

Results for Round 2 (Senate race and Governor Race and US House District Races):

Results for Round 3 (Senate race and US House District 2):


Apparently I don't have a picture for Morgan & Neil. Here's their Final Results:
Morgan Philpot – 671 votes or 60.13%
Neil Walter – 445 votes or 39.87%

I live in District 3, but I put up the results for District 2. Morgan is awesome! If you live in District 2 you should feel honored to vote for him this November.

1 comment:

Nacilbupera said...

Excellent post! I learned some things from your post even though I was able to watch most of the convention from the Utgop website.

Thank you for your service as a delegate!