friday roundup

• Joe Cannon is leaving the post of Utah Republican Party chair, making current Vice Chair Enid Greene chair until the next party elections. A failed 2004 Lt. Governor candidate, a failed Congresswoman, and now UT Republican Party chairwoman. The party has a corrupt, but at least competent person at the helm now. However, I am sure she won't last. Utah Republicans have a habit of kicking out women from leadership positions in their party, just ask Governor Walker.


• An opponent to Joe Lieberman (CFL-CT), called the Secretary of State of Connecticut and found out that even Joe wasn't a member of his own "Connecticut for Lieberman" party, so he joined, made himself party chairman, and created the party rules. Here are the highlights (courtesy of My Left Nutmeg):
  

  a. If you run under Connecticut for Lieberman, you must actually join our party.
  b. The party will nominate people for office who have the last name of Lieberman and/or who are critics and opponents of Senator Lieberman.
  c. If any CFL candidate loses our party's nomination in a primary, that candidate must bolt our party, form a new party and work to defeat our party endorsed candidate.
  d. We in the CFL intend to run the same candidate for three different jobs at the same time, ie. House, Senate and Governor.

  
  The brilliant idea is to 1) hold Lieberman accountable, 2) expose "Connecticut for Lieberman" as a sham party, 3) lock out Lieberman from both CFL and Democratic party, making it impossible to Joe to run for reelection in 2012, unless he creates another fake party. The CT legislature will probably change the election laws to prevent sore losers from creating their own parties and running again against their primary opponents, either by changing the date of party formation to before party primaries (currently it is the day after) or simply not allowing a losing candidate to run again.


• SLC mayoral race in 2007 is wide open. Ten candidates have filed for this "non-partisan" election. The winner will most likely be a Democrat, but that hasn't stopped Republicans from trying. Democrats in the minority in the state and county legislature have opted for a chance in the greener pastures of the old city and county building. I don't have a dog in this fight, but I may decide whom I like after learning more about what the candidates propose to do, rather than who they are. Kirk Jowers, Hinckley Institute of Politics told KSL, "There is a lot of pent up excitement to run for office. It's the same thing you'd find if Hatch or Bennett decide to hang it up. There's a lot of people who have been waiting for this moment."