I just realized I never posted a follow-up to my gripping, compelling series on my experiences with the Utah caucus system, and I know from the sheer volume of emails that you’re all just dying to read it. So for all you (non-existent) people:
The most interesting thing to come out of the caucus process was to make contact with my local State Representative. He was running unopposed, and so didn’t really have to put up much of an effort. And yet he held several events to get to meet delegates and find out who we are and what our concerns are. He described us as “The House of Representatives for District 32”, and wants to keep in touch over the next two years of our tenure. I guess time will tell how serious he is about that, but it was impressive nonetheless, considering how little anyone other unopposed candidates wanted to even acknowledge our existence.
The Big Event was the County Convention, held one Saturday morning a few weeks back. I got there early, having been warned about how bad parking can get. It was held at a local high school I’ve been to on a few occasions for book signings (Brandon Mull draws quite a crowd!), which was one of the few places big enough to hold such an event. Before the meeting proper the candidates were given a space in the school gymnasium to set up booths and meet delegates. About the only one that I could find and/or showed much interest in talking to me was the one mentioned above–who remembered my face, if not my name as I walked up. After a few minutes I decided to go stake out my seat in the main auditorium.
The first several hours were devoted to preliminaries and procedural stuff, like instructions as to what would be happening. We also said the Pledge of Allegiance and sang the Star Spangled Banner–and believe me, hearing both done by 2200 people (out of 2600 possible delegates) at once is a spine-tingling experience in itself.
Then came the cheerleading. Most all of the national level (ie. US Senators, Representatives, Governor, etc) and county-level officers came to report on their efforts. So many of them were subjected to standing ovations for simply walking into the room, and it made me a little uncomfortable. I decided that, as I was there representing everyone in my precinct and as I couldn’t know how they personally felt about each officer, I’d best keep my own feelings out of it and just sit there, clap respectfully, but not otherwise give any sign for or against what they had to say. At least that’s what I told myself. It was a convenient out, but frankly their pandering and specific wordings designed to elicit cheers got old really quickly. Yes, yes, we’re all for broad things, and the opposition is against anything good in the world. I get it. Give me details and context or shut up.
I did come away from that determined to do some more research, as I realized I was only getting one side of the story and I didn’t want to fall victim to Stockholm Syndrome. That said, it was kinda cool to be in the same room as some of these people I hear about regularly in the news. But cool doesn’t get my vote. I’ll be checking the issues and the stances on both sides before the elections this fall, and weighing each on their actual merits, not their celebrity factor, thank you.
If you’re sensing a little hostility in my report by this point you’re probably not wrong. Cheerleading does start to grate on my nerves after a while. I doubt the other party’s convention was any different.
After the main meeting ended those delegates in districts with actual contested races got to break off into their individual districts and vote for whatever races they needed to decide. I went and ate lunch, as I was not in one of those districts. The next session I did need to go to, though, as we had a number of delegate seats for the State convention left to fill for precincts that didn’t get enough turn-out on caucus night. We worked through that rather quickly, chose our three, listened to our State Representative again, and a few other unopposed candidates that wanted to drum up our support for the fall election, and called it a day.
On the way out I did get to chat with the Utah Speaker of the House, who was a missionary in the same area I was in Australia over twenty years ago (never, ever would have expected that future for him back then). But by then I’d pretty much had my fill of politics and was happy to get home and get started on replacing our garbage disposal. I understand the state convention can go on even longer–in which case I’m glad I didn’t go to that one.
So my responsibility as a county delegate is completed for another year. It was an interesting experience, certainly, and I’m not sorry I was involved. I am, perhaps, a little disappointed with some of the delegates who didn’t show, but that’s not worth getting bent out of shape over. I did my duty, and that’s what matters.