Newsmax reports that the “tea partiers” and grass roots conservatives in Utah claim to have enough delegates within the Republican Party to effectively “take it over” at the upcoming May 8 convention.
In a surprising development that sets the stage for a dramatic political showdown, tea party and grass-roots conservatives tell Newsmax they have seized control of Utah’s GOP delegate system, and are now in a position to select which candidates will represent the party in the midterm elections.
“Our feeling is that the majority of the Republican Party delegates are now tea party people,” Brian Halladay, one of the founders of the grass-roots Utah Rising organization, tells Newsmax.
Utah GOP leaders say they can’t be sure, but concede the activists’ assessment may be accurate.
Incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett may get the shock of his life at the nominating convention:
A tea party takeover of Utah’s GOP would appear to be particularly bad news for incumbent GOP Sen. Bob Bennett. Despite Bennett’s conservative record, especially on social issues, many tea party leaders are not pleased with some of his positions and have openly campaigned to unseat him. They are especially displeased that Bennett initially supported the TARP bailouts, a program he has since tried to end.
Dave Weigel of the Washington Post reported Tuesday that a recent poll of more than 1,000 GOP delegates in Utah showed that Bennett is the top choice of only 15 percent of them. Tea party favorite Mike Lee, an attorney and first-time candidate, was the top choice of 35 percent of the delegates polled.
Hansen is skeptical that Bennett is in as much trouble as that survey suggests, however.
A Rasmussen Reports poll of 620 Utah GOP voters released April 15 suggests Hansen may be right. The poll showed Bennett leading the GOP field with 37 percent of the vote, compared to 14 percent for Lee and 14 percent for businessman Tim Bridgewater, who previously made two unsuccessful runs for the House of Representatives. Former Congressman Merrill Cook was the choice of 6 percent of respondents.
It is important to note, however, that under GOP’s system in Utah, rank-and-file voters only get an opportunity to pick between the top two delegate vote-getters (and even that assumes neither candidate wins 60 percent of the delegates’ votes).
That means Bennett faces the nightmare scenario of being an incumbent senator unable to win his own party’s nomination to defend his own seat. That startling outcome would send perhaps the loudest signal yet that the tea party movement is exerting a strong gravitational pull on the Republican Party, pushing it to the right.
“If you’d asked me that two months ago, I’d of said I would be very surprised,” Hansen tells Newsmax of the notion that Bennett might not qualify to defend his own seat. “I would be less surprised today, after watching the turnout at the caucuses and what’s happened.”
A grass-roots takeover in Utah would mark the first time the tea party has assumed control of a state-level GOP apparatus. Nevada’s GOP also experienced a tea party surge. Clark County’s Republican Party, which presides over GOP activities in Las Vegas, is now controlled by grass-roots conservative activists.
To paraphrase Frank Sinatra, “If we conservatives can make it in Nevada and Utah, we can make it anywhere.”
Please read the entire Newsmax article. It is instructive about HOW to change “the Republicans” we conservatives all complain about. We have to BECOME the Party. We do that by UNITING INSIDE THE PARTY as precinct committeemen. See my blog link below for HOW to do it.
If you are a conservative, and not yet a Republican precinct committeeman, what are you waiting for? Besides, it’s fun. 
Thank you.
ColdWarrior, PC
Conservatives, UNITE! CHANGE the Republican Party and the world by UNITING INSIDE the Party as precinct committeemen. NOW!
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American first, conservative second, Republican precinct committeeman BY NECESSITY!
www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com, so you can say, “I became a precinct committeeman before it was cool.”
“[Primary e]lections have consequences, my friends.” — John McCain
