I wanted to share a few thoughts from the Davis County Republican Party convention from Saturday. It was fun for me as the first time I have attended such a convention with the ability to vote. Because I have spent so much energy researching and considering the Senate race and other races that will be decided at the state convention (such as my Utah House district) I did not feel as prepared for this convention as I would have felt if it had been the state convention this weekend. Thankfully I had some good friends there who were better prepared. After talking with them I was able to make decisions on races where I felt under-informed before (I’m sure we did not all vote alike) and to feel even more confident in my choices on the races where I had felt prepared and informed.
I was mildly impressed with the statistic that 97.7% of delegates made it to the convention but considering that they (we) were elected only 18 days ago I would consider anything under 95% to be disappointing. I can’t wait to see the attendance at next year’s convention. Then I would be pleasantly surprised if we got 75% attendance.
I have come to the conclusion (again) that conventions could operate more quickly if we could reduce the amount of generic campaigning such as having current officeholders speak if they have nothing more to say than we are fed up with the actions of the other party and we’re going to take back the presidency/House/Senate/governorship/state legislature (whichever ones apply). We could also save time by skipping the speeches that say nothing more than give ourselves a pat on the back for the great things we have done in {whichever of the above we control currently}. (That might also save some hospital bills.) For example, my reaction when Orrin Hatch spoke was that even when he said the rift things he completely failed to convince me that he cared about anything more than getting to stay in the Senate.
If all speeches were focused on “here’s what we are or should be working on going forward” the time would be more valuably spent.
