Saturday, April 5, 2008

Utah County Republican Party

After all the flap about e-mail lists and candidates, County Party Chair Marian Monnahan has agreed to give the e-mail list to ALL the candidates. That is very broad-minded of the party, or shall I say fair? At my precinct caucus, I never once heard the precinct chair say that the delegate e-mail addresses were to be kept for internal party use only. Marian feels that her honor is being compromised by allowing these lists to be circulated, yet when and how did she promise the lists would be kept private? Since delegates were just elected on 25 March, she would have had to distribute this promise to the delegates via mail, phone, or e-mail after the 25th. Otherwise, she would have been telling the previous delegates. And sources on the Utah County Republican Central Committee say that this issue was never mentioned at Central Committee meetings.

I hate to think that leaders in my Republican party are pre-disposed towards incumbents, but it sure seems that way. Susan Bramble, Utah County Party Secretary, controls the lists which is a conflict of interest that can benefit her candidate husband. The Utah Republican Party sent out a flyer soliciting donations for "The Fabulous Five", a group of freshman legislators, some of which have intra-party challenges, and that is against party rules. Chairman Lockhart says it was mistakenly sent out late, but hopefully the state party workers are not that inept.

The Republican Party has always been my party of choice and I don't want to bash the party. I want to see the party be transparent and fair.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You may be interested in my posts and interaction with the County Party Leadership's reversal on the e-mail address disclosure decision at www.thewidemiddle.com.

Barbara said...

Hate to burst your bubble, but my observation is that the UT Co. GOP leadership favors party insiders and "yes" men/women. They only want "their kind of Republican" to be elected to further their agenda rather than facilitate a transparent election process in support of representative government promoting the public good.

Tom said...

At my caucus, it was rather directly suggested that including my email address was for the specific purpose of allowing candidates to contact me electronically. (Rather contrary to Chair Monnahan's claim.) As addresses had been provided to candidates in previous years, I was surprised at the initial flap over the information not being released.