Philosophically, I'm in basic agreement with the Republican Party platform. I like the Constitution Party platform too. But the convention system, I have learned is where the corruption in Utah politics is most acute, both on the Republican side and on the Democrat side. Conventions are places where you have to be a delegate to participate. To be a delegate you have to attend and participate in the Republican caucus in your precinct. To participate in the Republican caucus in your precinct, you have to be a registered Republican. That's easy enough. I believe in the platform. Starting about 12 years ago, I started getting myself elected to positions in the party because I had witnessed some things firsthand at the 1998 Salt Lake County Convention that I knew needed fixing. So in 1999 I got myself and a bunch of other people elected to the UTGOP State Central Committee. I even got elected to the State Executive Committee that year since I brought so many of my friends onto the State Central Committee who could elect me. Then I was elected as a precinct chair in 2000, which put me on the County Central Committee, then elected to the Salt Lake County Executive Committee in the same year. And so we began to systematically begin to learn the rules and to stand up to obvious instances of cheating which were rampant at that point in the process.

In order to clean up the corruption in the party, it's going to take a lot of ordinary people who go to the same precinct caucuses getting informed and deciding that they are going to put an end to the dirty tricks in the party. 

This can happen two ways. Delegates can elect better officers in the first place, or delegates can hold cheating officers accountable and subject them to disciplinary proceedings where, if found guilty of offenses against an innocent party member, the cheating offender can be removed in mid-term.

Utahns are so forgiving of misbehavior that the second option is almost impossible to attain.

But time and time again, stellar candidates have either won or come very close to winning.

So frankly, jasatt, at this point, my purpose in being a Republican is to sound an alarm to other Republicans that we could have a more respectable party if we would simply refuse to elect bums to leadership.

The individuals who are running for state party offices (election to be held now, on the 22nd, to fill a mid-term, and again in the summer to choose who will govern for the next two years) are fatally flawed.

So far one ethical alternative to the chosen has emerged, Dave Duncan, an activist from Utah County. I am doing all that I can to help him in his bid. He has no chance on the 22nd when just 180 mostly party insiders will be making the call. But at the official state convention this summer, Thomas Wright's record of hostility to fair process and to the sovereignty of the delegates could be his undoing. We intend to give Mr. Wright and company a run for their money.

Now if we could just find someone who would take up the same fight within the Democratic Party in Utah. You wouldn't happen to be a Democrat by any chance would you jasatt?