I had the opportunity to see the Cannon, Leavitt, and Chaffetz campaign speeches at both the Utah County and Utah State Republican Conventions. When it became clear through successive rounds of voting at the state convention that David Leavitt wasn’t going to win and that even Cannon would probably lose outright to Chaffetz at convention, all sorts of funny business started happening. It was like watching a large wounded animal give its last throws of life before submitting to defeat.
So what did Cannon do? He colluded with Leavitt to get the votes of Leavitt delegates, which by itself is fine; but in order to get the message to Leavitt supporters, Cannon and Leavitt broke party rules against signage in the conference center twice: the first time by having Leavitt volunteers march right through the convention holding giant Cannon signs, and second by hanging a large handwritten sign that said “Leavitt supports Cannon” at the top of the stadium. Both acts received tremendous booing from the audience and calls from the Chairman to maintain order and cease the disruptive behavior.
It struck me to see how unprincipled and disparate the two losing major republican candidates really were. But in the end they got their message across. The final vote after Leavitt was eliminated was 59% for Chaffetz and 41% for Cannon, with Chaffetz lacking only 9 votes from the 60% required to win the republican nomination outright.
And so, the vote went to primaries, where money and name recognition generally give a major boost to incumbents. Those primaries are today, and polling suggests that the nomination could go either way. I’m going to vote for Chaffetz, and if you’re a registered Republican in Utah Congressional District 3, I hope you do too.
Although I didn’t agree with the whole thing, here are some gems from the Chaffetz speech (video):
I believe the best hope for our people, for our families, is to return to those core conservative principles of fiscal discipline, limited government, accountability, and a strong national defense. We’ve abandoned those principles… Republicans had the house, the senate, and the presidency, and quite frankly, we blew it. We did not do the heavy lifting on the issues that matter most.
When Mr. Cannon took office, the budget was $1.5 trillion. Today it’s $2.9 trillion. That’s unacceptable, and we cannot sustain that. We have a $9.3 trillion debt. Last year alone we paid $429 billion of interest on that debt. That cannot stand.
Mr. Cannon voted in favor of No Child Left Behind. I want to repeal No Child Left Behind; there should be no Department of Education.
Here’s my favorite misleading statement from the Cannon campaign video:
[Chris Cannon] has told the Federal Government to stay out of our schools.
Well, Cannon may have told the Federal Government to stay out of our schools, but that’s certainly not how he voted. No Child Left Behind meddles with our schools in unprecedented ways.
If you want to do a last minute check on the issues, here is the Chaffetz platform.
Incidentally, you are also allowed to vote between Mark Walker and Richard Ellis for as the Republican nomination for State Treasurer. See their campaign speeches here and here.
Get out and vote!