Salt Lake Tribune: Utah GOP Again Rejects Reforms to Nomination Process

Thousands of Republican faithful reject candidate-selection reforms, install first "loan shark" leader in history

The Salt Lake Tribune this morning provides the latest news regarding the results of Saturday's Utah State Republican Party Convention, where a staunch 55% of "nearly 2600" Utah GOP convention delegates among other things, drew a line in the sand, refused to "cave to threats," and "passed up" the golden opportunity to usher the Utah GOP's nominating process (albeit kicking and screaming), straight into the the 21st Century:

The Utah Republican Party again rejected a series of reforms to the party’s nominating process in a move that could trigger a threatened ballot initiative to overhaul the system for picking candidates.
Count My Vote, a group made up of several prominent Republicans, including former Gov. Mike Leavitt, argued the current system puts too much power in the hands of a small group of delegates, depresses turnout and leads to radicalization of Utah politics.
The group had said if changes weren’t made, it would push for a ballot initiative — likely by gathering signatures on a petition — that would give candidates an alternative to going through the delegate process to get into a primary election.
At the Utah Republican Party State Convention on Saturday, GOP loyalists once again rejected any reform proposals, in particular a measure that would have required a candidate to get more than two-thirds of the delegate vote to avoid a primary.

Read up, folks:

• Utah GOP again rejects reforms to nomination process

Looks like Count My Vote is already geared-up to move forward  with their threatened citizen initiative petition drive. "Count My Vote leaders will meet Monday to discuss their next step," says CMV spokesman Rich McKeown. For more information on this Utah GOP-insurgent group, check out their website, which is already up and running:

• Count My Vote Utah

And as a possible indicator of just how "serious" this battle has become, check out this Count My Vote Utah "spoof" website:

• Count My Vote Spoof Website

Yep.  Utah GOP nominating process reform opponents are "pulling out all the stops."

We'll be standing by awaiting news of the inevitable petition drive of course, folks.  When the petitions are available for distribution and your eager signatures, our ever-gentle WCF Readers will certainly be the first to know.

Utah's new "State Fish?"

In another mind-boggling 2013 convention wrinkle, Saturday's assembled Utah GOP delegate throng also took the unprecedented step of handing over the reins of Utah's ruling political party (no we are not making this up) to a prominent Utah loan shark.  Yup.  That's right.  Not only is newly-elected Utah GOP State Party Chair James Evans "the first African-American to serve in the position," but he's also the proud owner and proprietor of Utah's "Checkline chain of payday lending stores," thereby prompting one sharp and alert Trib reader/commenter to query whether "republicans [might] want to make [the] loanshark the state fish."

Those were the convention "high-points," O Gentle Ones.

Or perhaps we should label them the low-points?