MY 2024 CAUCUS EXPERIENCE

​Our Caucus/Convention system here in Utah is the closest we will ever get to real self-government. The idea that local neighborhood groups actually have a say in who represents them in the Party business is lost on most Americans. Without the Caucus system, our ability for grass roots participation in the political process will vanish. You will be represented by the big money influencers currently attacking our conservative values and principles.

As a Precinct Vice Chair, I worked hard to ensure participation. I conducted many Caucus training sessions and personally hung 100 door hangers in my Precinct. I reached out to the Party for contact information to communicate with Republican voters in my neighborhood and was surprised to discover that no effort had been made by Party leadership to provide anything other than name and addresses of voters used to register for caucus. I guess in the real world of text and email communications, the Party prefers snail mail. So, we went about our business of running our Caucus with 39 attendees out of 493 registered Republicans. That’s an 8% participation rate so the efforts by the big money liberals to destroy our Caucus system is working full steam ahead.

There is no doubt in my mind that if I could have reached out to my Precinct members prior to Caucus we would have had a better turnout and greater participation. Every cell phone has an address associated with it.  Lists of most of these numbers (with  addresses) can be purchased for very little money and then merged with the address list to provide phone numbers for pre-caucus contact. Apparently, the Party is OK with the dwindling numbers of registered Republicans and a lack of participation by 90% of those registered Republicans.

The breakdown of NO 12 in Weber County includes 10% Democrat, 30% unaffiliated and 55% Republican. Of the 55% Republicans in my Precinct, only 8% showed up to participate. That is pathetic if the Republican Party is serious about Caucus night. Another interesting statistic is the state of Utah has almost 500,000 Unaffiliated voters of which 259 reside in my Precinct...none of which showed up to affiliate with the Republican Party. Why is that?

My observation is Democrats do not unaffiliate from their Party because they can simply register as a Republican and continue their socialist practices within the Republican Party without objection. Witness our State Executive leadership claiming to be Republicans while endorsing Nikki Haley rather than the candidate supported by a super majority of the Party. Does “We the people” mean anything to them?

On the other hand, Republicans unaffiliate more than likely because they are frustrated with the direction of the Party and the State government it produces. They may also be frustrated with the Party’s inability to follow its own rules. We all know someone we have encountered in our lifetime who claims they are one thing but act as something totally different. It is natural to lose respect for people like that and when our Party does the same thing...guess what, we lose respect for our Party.
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NO 12 will survive as long as our Caucus systems survives. However, without a greater effort on the part of our Party, it is currently on life support as represented by our Precinct delegates and leadership elected by a vote of 8% of our fellow Republicans. This cannot be acceptable to the Party unless their long-term goal is to trash the Caucus system. Which at this point seems obvious.