2010 Election Results

This year I ran for Seat 'D' on the Summit County Council in the state of Utah. This is my third political campaign and my second for a seat on the County Council. This year the Republicans did not run a candidate, most certainly as an oversight v. intentionally. Thus the race boiled down to a Constitution Party candidate, yours truly, and the Democrat incumbent. It is important to note that even though Utah in general votes Republican, Summit County is strongly Democrat controlled. This is shown by Summit County being the only county in Utah in which the majority voted for Corroon (D) for governor v. Herbert (R).

Cutting to the chase, I received 39.56 percent of the vote v. the Democrat's 60.44 percent. I was disappointed it was not a closer race but my vote total was by far the highest in any race in the state of Utah involving a Constitution Party candidate. (Note: a Constitution Party member did win a race in Morgan County but the race was non-partisan.) On the flip side, my race was the only race in which a CP candidate was paired against a Democrat v. the usual CP candidate being paired against a Republican or a CP candidate in a 3 or 4-way race.

Here are the 2010 results for races involving CP members in Utah (note the numbers are percentages):

I do not know what other CP candidates spent in their campaigns, though if I was interested enough I could look it up, but I will end up spending close to $18,000 of my own funds. I did not accept contributions, though some were offered. To date I have spent close to $30,000 of my own funds on my three campaigns. I consider the funds and time expended my contribution to my civic duty as a citizen of Utah. At this juncture, it is my intention to run one more campaign.

I ran my first political campaign as a Libertarian for State Representative and received about 7 percent of the vote in a three-way race. I received no help from the Libertarians in the County or State so I changed my party affiliation to Constitution. My second campaign was for Summit County Council. Again, I received no help from the State Constitution Party and was not able to mount an aggressive campaign due to my needing to travel a lot during the campaign to assist in the care of my parents. My second campaign netted me approximately 10 percent of the vote running in a three-way race. My third campaign, as discussed above, was a two-way race against a Democrat incumbent for a seat on the County Council. Again I received no help (publicity or campaign helpers) from the CP of Utah. In fact, they did not even have me listed on their web site as a candidate. Also note that there are only 12 active, registered CP voters in the entire county! And when I say 'active' that is the County Clerk's designation, not mine, that is, they have voted sometime in the past 10 years. I received the votes that I did ONLY because I received the assistance of the Republican Party and those involved in the TEA Party, S.T.A.R. Forum, 9-12ers, etc. I likely would not have received the help I did if a Republican had been running.

When I changed parties from Libertarian to Constitution my principles changed little. Over the intervening few years I have become more a champion of the divine nature of our Constitution and that our rights are derived from God, not government (in order, in part, to keep government's grubby hands off them.) But other than that my platform has always been limited, open, and fiscally restrained government and the championing of individual property rights. I have always stressed that one should vote their conscience and the order of importance in deciding one's vote should be principles, person, and lastly, party.

I have championed third-parties since I started running my political campaigns. I believed that the two major parties had lost their way and had basically merged as one statist organization. Then along came dinglebarry and his minions shoving socialism down our throats and our TEA Party's response. It is my opinion that the 2010 elections show the power we the people have if we will but exercise it. Now it remains to be seen if our newly elected officials will follow through with their campaign rhetoric but many were elected in repudiation of socialism and in triumph of our God given rights.

Back to the results of election in my little part of the world. Based on the results reported above, I wrote the following as part of my recent communication to the Constitution Party leadership in Utah:

The CP candidates running two-way races against Republican candidates averaged 19.5%. Not bad but not close to winning an election.
There was only one race in which a CP member was paired against a Democrat opponent with no Republican. That was in my race in which I received 39.56% of the votes. Still a long way from winning but it was the highest percentage any CP member obtained in any race. (Note that I have not included Lyle Nelson who, even though CP, ran in a non-partisan race, AND WON!!)
Further, in only one race, the Wasatch County Assessor race, did the CP candidate have enough votes to affect the outcome of the election if they had not run. As CP voters would tend to vote Republican (as verified in my race), it still would not have affected the outcome since the Republican won anyway. Thus if no CP candidate was run in any partisan race in Utah the election results would most probably have been the same (barring extreme protest votes).

Based on the lack of help from the Constitution and Libertarian Parties of Utah in my campaigns, the obvious difficulty in being elected running as a member of either party, the amount of money I am spending on my campaigns, the campaign assistance given to me by the Republican Party in Summit County, and the fact that there is now a strong component within the Republican Party which holds many of the same principles that I do, I have given notice to the Utah Constitution Party leadership that I am resigning as CP Summit County Chair and have filed the necessary paperwork to become a member of the Republican Party. I will run, what I intend will be my final campaign, as a Ron Paul (Rand Paul) Republican.

I still champion third-party activism and in fact would argue that third-party activism is the primary force which has awoken the Republican Party. Of course, the Republican Party can tell me to go pound sand regarding my election ambitions in 2012 and with a Democrat dominated county I will still very much have an uphill battle to actually get elected in order to have a voice and vote on the County Council (if that is the race I chose to take on). But I have tasted the wine of becoming a candidate who actually had a chance of getting elected, and I say, "it's time".

My principles have not changed, I will continue to exclusively self-fund my campaign, and I retain the belief that if we do not reign government in, it will reign over us.