Chairman Holland

I should have stayed for Wilco.

Yes, one of Heather's friends had secured a ticket for me to go see Wilco in Las Vegas on the night of the 19th. And yes, I turned the ticket down so I could get back to Utah in time for the Utah State Democratic Convention.

Yeah, yeah. I know.

The night before the convention, while Heather was basking the glow of a four hour concert, I determined to vote for Jeff Bell. Not a huge surprise given my previous thoughts on the direction of the party, but I'm going to claim that I still had at that time reservations about my decision. Jeff sent out zero emails, waged a pitiful campaign on his website, and really wasn't up to much even on Facebook (besides engaging in some odd Facebook games that I had to keep hiding from my feed--honestly, if I have to hide your Facebook feeds more than, say, once, I shouldn't be voting for you to lead a major party on a state level.).

Wayne Holland, on the other hand, managed to send out an email blast the day before the convention, lined up pretty much every elected Democrat in the state as endorsers, and, at least it seemed to me, in the days before the convention, became noticeably more visible in the media I typically peruse.

As I arrived at the convention, Wayne Holland banners greeted me EVERYWHERE. Jeff Bell had a table with a bowl of candy.

And the man just looked...weird. I don't want to necessarily disparage a person based on their physical appearance, but I do think a leader should exude at least some degree of gravitas, or confidence mixed with intellect and humility, or something that inspires confidence in him. Wayne had the look. Jeff didn't.

Still, I continued to feel inclined to vote for Bell, if for nothing more than as a signal of my dissatisfaction with the party's performance. When the good folks in the Progressive Caucus argued in favor of Wayne, I acknowledged my uncertainty about Bell, but pointed to the dismal failure of statewide candidates as evidence of how far the party still has to go. When Jeff Bell came in and addressed the caucus, I grilled him about his message, how exactly he would go about pushing aggressively to lead the party. Once again, Bell didn't live up to what I expected from a leader. In Jeff's defense, I'll say that while Wayne came in and delivered some great lines, Wayne also only took one question, from the caucus chair, which kind of irked me (but time was running short, too, by the time Wayne addressed us, so I'll cut him some slack).

Turned out Wayne didn't need to do much to come off better than Jeff. When the caucus voted to endorse a candidate, I was the only vote dissenting from the motion to endorse Wayne. Not that I was going to offer a motion to endorse Jeff, either. My decision to vote for him was, by that time, increasingly indefensible. I was glad I grilled him, at least.

When caucuses broke and we met for the main order of events, I sat next to my buddy Gordon Stuart and watched as dozens of Wayne Holland banners popped up across the auditorium. Even then, as we moved through the prayer and the pledge and the speakers, I thought that somehow, maybe, Jeff would still give me a reason to vote for him.

Then it happened.

Bell and his supporters gathered on the stage and slipped a MacBook onto a shelf inside the podium. I was ready for a spectacular multimedia presentation. The person who was to put Jeff Bell's name into nomination started fiddling with the laptop. Nothing happened. She turned to Jeff for help. He couldn't figure it out. She pressed on and tried to talk about how the party fell short. Jeff still kept fiddling around with the Mac. She concluded her speech. Jeff blamed her for breaking his computer. The Mac desktop appeared, but still no presentation. Another supporter seconded the nomination. Jeff pulled up what appeared to be a powerpoint, but couldn't get any sound to work. He blamed his supporters, again, for breaking his computer.

Then Jeff started to speak. He sputtered. He rambled. He blamed his staff for ruining the presentation. Then, he blamed his Mac. And then he walked off the stage.

I left Murray High shortly after casting my vote and followed Gordon home. I noticed Phil Riesen heading out to his car at the same time I did. A group of us left the parking lot at the same time. Nobody needed to hear the results of the voting.


Wayne won the election before he even stepped out onto the stage to be nominated.


Perhaps we're doing the best we can right now as Democrats in this state. Perhaps I should be throwing more blame for statewide election failure on candidates like Bob Springmeyer, rather than blaming Wayne and Todd Taylor. (Perhaps I can come up with an outlandish conspiracy theory about how Craig Axford sabotaged Jeff Bell's presentation, or, better yet!, how Jeff's candidacy was deliberately thrown up by Wayne as a foil to show us all how bad things could really be if someone were to challenge him....Sigh.)

As leg. chair for house district 18, I think it's only fair that I shoulder significant blame for Mark Openshaw's failure this last time around. Ultimately, of course, the voters of Davis County who preferred John Petroff over J Dell Holbrook have no one but themselves to blame.

Still, I can't help feeling like we as Democrats can be doing better. We can do a better job of training leaders and campaigners. Kim Wixon set the Davis County Democrats on that path with the monthly DFA Grassroots trainings he instituted. I'd like to see a lot more of that, on the county level and from the state. (Of course, if candidates refuse to attend meetings, I certainly can't blame anyone else).

Regardless, it's Wayne's party for the next two years. I hope he gives me reason to be a stronger supporter in 2011 than I was this time around. As much as I can, I'll keep trying to pitch in to help. Who knows, though. The 2010 state convention may well occur without me (either because I fail to get elected as a delegate as a result of this obnoxious little blog, or, more likely, because I'll be training for the Foreign Service).