AYN RAND'S ATLAS SHRUGGED

This Saturday Night in Sandy

Dear Fellow Republican,

When I decided to run to become your new Utah County Republican Party Secretary, I campaigned on a need for responsible change for our Party.

Not a change of our core values, but real change of how we go about listening to our delegates, how we communicate our message from the bottom up to our Republican leaders. We need and can get ourselves to be better organized to win elections with the best GOP representatives. A fair, open dialog and healthy competition amongst Republicans gives us the best Republican leaders to step forward and lead our GOP party. It simply is not enough to say you’re a Republican anymore. We need to see our leaders live it to the core. As Jason Chaffetz is sleeping in his cot.

While I'm excited about the challenges and opportunities we face, I have no illusions. I am fully aware of the hard work ahead and obstacles we must overcome to give ourselves some fair and balanced Republican blood.

But this isn't about me -- I can't do this alone.

It's about you and every Republican grassroots leader who believes in restoring the voice to the people.

And it's about empowering you to lead and giving you the tools to help our Party set a new direction for our country.

Successful campaigns cannot be run from inside an office building. The strength of our Party comes from people like you who believe in our values and ideals and promote them in their communities. It’s time to adapt to the social networking and not adapt to socialism.  Our Party deserves much more then just a hand shake once a year by our establishment.  Or a great speech at the Convention. We need the establishment to listen to our concerns, fears, and proposals for solutions for our State and Local Government. If they won’t listen to us then we need to replace them with someone (Republican) who will.

I'm asking you to do two very important things for me:

1)     Please take a moment right now to visit our Utah County Republican Party website  http://www.utahgop.org/NewsnPress.htm and look at all of the candidates who have worked hard to earn your vote.

2) Please consider all of the political scandals you have heard of in our Utah County Politics and please consider it is the tip of the iceberg.  There are more.  Politicians work hard to keep things private and the media finds ways to see their mistakes. The question has been asked for the Federal Government, When is Enough…Enough? Now I ask you the same question in regards to our local level, When is Enough….Enough?  

It is so important that you hear my plea to be involved with your Utah County Republican Party.  We need to campaign to educate and mobilize each Republican who wants our State Legislators and Washington to listen to the voice of the people. We may not have Joe the Plumber living in Utah County but I stand with you as your Keith the Tech Guru and Marketing Guru. I want to speak up and lift up our values so everyone knows we all care and are fed up.  Democrats are pushing down our throats there liberal minded agenda attack on our children’s future.  Debt in the Trillions will be held on your grand-children’s shoulders, my shoulders, and my children’s shoulders. I am getting involved to get the Young Republican’s voice heard by seasoned Republicans. I am putting the status quo on check and I need your vote do just that.

Please know that your guidance vote matters tomorrow.  

Our Party cannot do anything without you so please attend tomorrow.

Utah County Organizing Convention info


Sincerely,

Keith Kuder

Keith Kuder
Secretary, Utah County Republican Party Candidate

P.S. I am eager to have all delegates be informed of Utah County Republican politics in real time so please inform every delegate you know to subscribe to my newsletter.

Link: http://tiny.cc/Delegates_Newsletter

Thank you.

I've written a number of times about the control freaks who run the Utah County Republican Party and their efforts to make sure their clique remains in power.

Here's the latest example.

Keith Kuder is running for party secretary in Utah County to replace Susan Bramble, wife of Sen. Curtis Bramble, who is stepping down. Two other candidates for party secretary are Lisa Shepherd, who got a bit sideways with the party establishment last year when she had the audacity to challenge an incumbent legislator in the GOP convention, and Matt Thompson, the son of Utah County Auditor-Treasurer Brian Thompson and the apparent favorite of the party bosses, according to the endorsements.

So perhaps it is not a surprise that Kuder, a relative newcomer to party politics, was told in a conference call from Susan Bramble and Party Chair Marian Monnahan that he had to remove the Republican logo featuring two elephants from his electronic newsletter he was sending out to delegates. He was not a representative of the party, the officers told him he is just a candidate, so he could not use the logo. Shepherd also was told she could not use the elephant logos, although she told the brass she would only remove them on her e-mails, not on materials already printed.

Funny. Taylor Oldroyd, who is running for party chair to replace Monnahan, who also is stepping down, has the Republican logo all over his mailers without an apparent problem. Oldroyd also is the favored candidate of the establishment, based on endorsements.

The Republican logo taboo is interesting in light of the fuss made by Utah County GOP officers when Democratic candidates for public office last year chose not to put the Democratic logo on their campaign signs.

Former Senate President John Valentine, R-Provo, a leader in the Utah County GOP, was a bit dumbfounded himself when learning of the rule against the logos.

"If you're a Republican candidate for anything, you ought to be able to display the Republican logo to show who you are," he says.
Cheers,
Paul Rolly

Article Link: http://blogs.sltrib.com/politics/

Rolly: Fun and games in Utah County By Paul Rolly
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune Updated:04/17/2009 07:09:12 PM MDT

The Utah County Republican Party for years has been an interesting animal to observe, with accusations of sophomoric shenanigans and clannish behavior.

Utah County's annual Lincoln Day dinner fundraiser often featured a straw vote among attendees for the Republican candidates running for office that particular year. In order to vote, you had to purchase a dinner, so it was a clever way to sell a lot of tables to the campaigns feeling like they needed votes for a good showing.

Then there was the party float incident in which then-Senate Majority Leader Curt Bramble, R-Orem, and then-Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, persuaded the president of a state-run trade school, who was asking the Legislature for increased funding, to use school funds and resources to build a chassis for the Utah County Republican float.

And there was the formation of the Utah County Legislative PAC, a fundraising arm of the party that was separate from the official Utah County Republican Party with Valentine and Bramble in control, allowing them to determine which candidates got money from the PAC. Bramble also had at least one family member paid to do work for the PAC.

A few months ago, a candidate for president of Utah Valley University was told that in order to help himself become a finalist for the job, he had to apologize to the Utah County legislators because his wife had run for the Legislature as a Democrat and had made legislative ethics an issue.
Now, it's time for the party to elect new officers and Republican Central Committee members, and old suspicions are rising up between the so-called clique and those who have had the audacity to challenge that clique's power.

Lisa Shepherd got sideways with the insiders last year when she challenged incumbent Rep. Keith Grover of Provo for the Republican nomination. She heard from party and legislative leaders, including Bramble, and was discouraged from running.

Things seemed to have calmed after that intra-party struggle, which she lost, until now, when she is running for county party secretary to replace Bramble's wife, Susan, who is stepping down. The Brambles showed up at a recent meet-the-candidates meeting and Curt began leading the discussion, pointedly asking Shepherd questions about the propriety of a party official -- Shepherd is a legislative district chair -- running for public office.

Later, in private conversations, Bramble brought up concerns about Shepherd's daughter being appointed a precinct vice-chair, when there was an opening, and therefore becoming an automatic delegate.

The questions were curious since the Brambles showed no concern when the daughter of GOP State Chairman Stan Lockhart and his wife, Rep. Becky Lockhart, R-Provo, was allowed to run and be elected as a delegate in a precinct she had not yet moved into.

In another Utah County precinct, Hannah DeForest, the vice-chair, had learned she was the automatic head of the precinct when the chair moved, so she appointed a new vice-chair and delegate. Later, she was informed by party brass that she was not the chair and a different person had been appointed to fill that opening. Her sin? She had refused to support the candidacy of an incumbent legislator the year before.

Jacqueline deGaston became a controversial figure in Utah County when she challenged Bramble in the Republican convention last year. She reported favoritism toward the Brambleites and all sorts of manipulation to prevent her supporters from becoming delegates.

She lost at the convention and perhaps was reminded of her insubordination this year when she filed by e-mail to run for one of the Utah County slots on the Republican State Central Committee.

Even though she filed on time, her name was not included in the candidate list submitted to the delegates attending Saturday's convention. After a number of people questioned that omission, her name finally was included.

But she got the message.

Lisa Shephard has made some story clarifications on her website.

Paul Rolly 4/18/09  Salt Lake Tribune Story Clarification
http://web.me.com/lisamshepherd/www.lisamshepherd/My_Responses.html