ron paul underpants: musings on the republican state convention

The following is an account of my experience at the Republican State convention. For those of you who don’t know, Utah uses this convention to narrow down the candidate pool. Delegates are chosen from geographical precincts and then they vote at the convention. The top two are put into a primary unless one candidate can get 60% of the vote, then they are the chosen one! It’s dumb. Please see this article for more info. You'll see a nice photo of my vacuumhttp://www.sltrib.com/ci_15015987?IADID=Search-www.sltrib.com-www.sltrib.com

I woke up at 5:30am on May 8th, rushed into Cherelle’s room and woke her up, and then the two of us headed down town for the State Republican convention. We hurried in hopes of getting the really cool complimentary items from the candidates, we were not disappointed. The Bennett room was handing out tote bags filled with snickers or m&ms, water bottles, mints (in case you have bad breath while arguing with the Lee delegates), and ten bucks. Okay, just kidding about the ten bucks.

Bennett’s team immediately put us to work carrying signs. Strategically placed on the busy street corners, we held signs that said “honk if you love Bob Bennett.” And honk they did. Some gave the old thumbs up, some thumbs down. Two homeless men on a buss yelled at us but their driver honked. It was a very good time! The highlights were when Peter Corroon drove by, stopped, rolled down his window, and said, “I love Bob.” I got all excited and said, “Hey I love you Peter Corroon!” Also, Mitt Romney did a drive by and was honking his guts out. He endorsed Senator Bennett at the convention.

Oh! The absolute best part was when I saw one of my old high school teachers crossing the street who also happened to be a delegate. I talked to him and we both affirmed our loyalty to Bob. I then pointed to a boy I knew from Blanding who was holding a Mike Lee sign. My teacher turns around and says, “You want me to kick his ass?” Ha ha ha! Love that Bruce Adams!

Inside the convention was nuts. Signs every where and volunteers handing out millions of flyers. Lots of free t-shirts were floating around; too bad I didn’t want any from the other crazy candidates’ teams. Oh. Congressman Jason Chaffetz was there. He looks like an illegal immigrant. Can’t stand the guy.

So I’ll give you a list, photo, and brief synopsis of each candidate’s speech. (just the senate ones). You can also watch them. I HIGHLY recommend the Fabiano Speech. Very CRAZY!
http://blog.utgop.org/sites/2010/05/

Mike Lee aka: Captain Constitution. He would wave a copy of the constitution around and the crowd would go nuts. He was very whiny. "Oh everyone picks on me in this race." I wanted to give him a wedgie with his Ron Paul underpants.

Tim: A nice enough person. He still drops a few "founding father's" remarks, but his main platform is that growing up in a trailer park makes him a good choice. He got most if not all of Bob's votes during the 3rd round.

I can't make the pictures line up right, so here's the low down.

Cherilyn Eager: Only woman, always trying to do her hair like Sarah Palin. Her speech sounded like a church talk and she almost cried. Something about a kid who loved his globe and his dad took it away and the kid says, "what are you doing with my world." At this point my friend Dave Andreasen and I broke out into "Heal the world, make it a better place..." That old Michael Jackson fave. Pretty sure it went over real well with all the Lee supporter's who were surrounding us.

Bob: Endorsed by Mitt Romney who himself drew a few boos from the crowd. Just the unreasonable ones so...Lee people and few bridgewaters.

Fabiano: White haired guy. Jon Cox and I think he's in with the mob. His talk can be summed up with the following. Constitution pyramid scheme using that book, The 500 year Leap.

Chiu: Not pictured. He loves Sarah Palin.

Friedbaum: Photo at the top of the post. Craziest of all. His opening line was a church hymn. That's fine and well for us Mormon-types, but not everyone is getting that. I admire the guy though. In the race for governor a few years back he ran and fasted for 39.5 days. It seems like he should have just tried for the full 40.

It is a shame that less than 1% of Utah's population gets to have the final call. Bob has the majority of the general population's vote. Cherelle and I started a write-in Bob group on facebook.com. I doubt he will do it, but it would shake things up a bit!