Standard-Examiner: Primary Competition Should Raise Interest in 2012 Elections

Special invitation to those readers among us who are fully up to speed on Ogden School Board politics to chime in with your comments, informing us who are your School Board candidate favorites and which candidates don't cut the mustard, in your own ever-savvy opinions

As we advance to within ten days of the 2012 Utah Primary Election, the Standard-Examiner carries a timely Dave Greiling column this morning, highlighting a few of the contested races which will appear on Top of Utah primary ballots, published with the obvious journalistic intention of heightening reader interest in the upcoming June 26 Primary Election balloting:

• Competition should raise interest in 2012 elections

For the sake of clarity, we'll pick up where Dave left off, and summarize those contested races coming up on June 26, including both the races which Mr. Greiling highlighted, and also the ones he missed.  For the sake of simplicity, we've limited our summary to those races which will appear on Weber County Primary Election ballots only. In those instances where candidates have taken the trouble to publish campaign websites, we've also provided those live links:

US Senate (GOP): Orrin Hatch and Dan Liljenquist

US House of Reprentatives (Democrats) District 1: Ryan Combe and Donna McAleer

State Auditor (GOP): John Dougall and Auston Johnson

Governor (Constitution): Kirk D Pearson and Brandon W. Nay

State Attorney general (GOP): Sean Reyes and John Swallow

Utah House District 29 (GOP): Brad Galvez and Lee Perry

Ogden School Board District 1: Don Belnap, David Tanner and Allen Smith

Ogden School Board District 5: Shane Story, J. Scott Handy,  Clark Hogan and Jim Hutchins

We hope all Weber County Forum political wonks took action to make sure you were registered to vote on June 26, by beating last Monday's Primary Election voter registration deadline. Mr. Greiling also hits the nail on the head, wethinks, when he says, "[i]t will be interesting to see if the number of contested races this time around spurs more voters to go to the polls."

And what about these Ogden School Board races?  Except for Board incumbents Don Belnap and Shane Story, and one of your blogmeister's favorites, District 5 candidate and frequent WCF contributor Jim Hutchins, most of these School Board hopefuls are generally unknown around these parts.

In that connection, we'll issue our special invitation to those readers among us who are fully up to speed on Ogden School Board politics to chime in with your comments, informing us who are your School Board candidate favorites and which candidates don't cut the mustard, in your ever-savvy opinions. The same applies to any other candidates on the June 26 Primary Election ballot roster, of course.

The floor's open O Gentle Ones.

Who'll be the first to throw in your own ever-savvy observations and remarks?