What a difference two years can make.
Monday night's party caucuses - the old neighborhood mass meetings - were sparsely attended by most standards, downright skimpy compared to their 1992 counterparts.Few interesting intraparty contests this year led to numbers at mass meetings being down by more than 50 percent. In some districts, the party district chairmen themselves didn't attend, having better things to do. And in many meetings, delegates to county and state conventions were nearly forced into the office or won outright because no one else wanted to go. The county conventions meet in April, the state conventions are in May, and the primary election is June 28.
In 1992, open and contested intraparty races in the U.S. Senate, U.S. House and governorship led to some bitter discussions and balloting in the mass meetings. Such contention is lacking this year.
The Republicans and Democrats have all but decided on their main candidates in the major races. Other candidates in those races will likely be routinely eliminated in the state conventions.
Add such ho-hum intraparty races to the fact that for the first time the whole election cycle has been moved up by a month, and it's easy to see why Monday's turnout was light, to say the least.
Interest in Democratic mass meetings in the strongly Republican Taylorsville area was almost nonexistent. Only three Democrats attended the District 3228 meeting at Maxine Christensen's home on Hilmar Drive, and no Democrats attended the District 3228 meeting, also scheduled for Christensen's home.
"All the Democrats around here have died off . . . or moved," said Christensen, who spent much of the one-hour allotted time pleading with neighbors and friends to see if they would attend. Even district chairman Randy Shaw did not attend, preferring shopping with his family over Democratic Party politics.
Most of the time was spent gossiping about the Whitewater scandal, Reaganomics and the pros and cons of term limitation. When the subject shifted to a petition drive to restructure state income tax rates, the few who attended knew nothing about it and initially dismissed it as a Republican tax proposal. It's actually a top priority of their own state Democratic Party.
Eight people attended Ted Wilson's Democratic caucus in the upper Avenues. "It's nice to see some new Democrats in the neighborhood," joked Wilson's wife, Kathy. Wilson is a former Salt Lake mayor who ran for the U.S. Senate in 1982 and for the governorship in 1988. Turnout was about half of what it was in 1992 "when we had a real debate over whether (the mass meeting) would support Wayne Owens or Doug Anderson (for the U.S. Senate)," Ted Wilson said. Gun control, environmental issues and getting the Democrat's state income tax rebracketing petition on the 1994 ballot dominated the discussion.
In GOP precinct 2524 in Salt Lake City's Yalecrest neighborhood, a gathering of 15 Republicans didn't need the video presentation of party chairman Bruce Hough's admonition to get involved, be partisan and help elect "good conservatives."
"I am so angry about the tax bill that passed Congress (last year) I want to do something about it," said local accountant Charles Brown, selected as a state delegate committed to Sen. Orrin Hatch and 2nd Congressional District candidate Enid Greene Waldholtz.
"Bradley and Horiuchi have got to go," said Elwood Powell, a county delegate, referring to Democratic Salt Lake County Commissioners Jim Bradley and Randy Horiuchi. Several aired concerns about Independent Party congressional candidate Merrill Cook splitting the 2nd District's GOP vote. But they agreed that Waldholtz needs to debate Democratic Rep. Karen Shepherd and avoid negative campaigning.
A Murray City Republican caucus met in the back yard of Jack and Jerry Aldrich's house, with citizens sitting on cold metal folding chairs. At least that caucus was short. Speeches were given supporting Waldholtz's 2nd District candidacy. State and county delegates were picked quickly - for once using ballots because three people wanted to be state delegates but the caucus only got two. Then people scurried for their warmer homes.