Some 3,500 state Republican Party delegates are being bombarded with free meals, campaign DVDs and a lot of personal attention by the dozen or so GOP candidates in an intense political race to sew up support before the state convention.
The delegates, just over 1,000 in each of the three U.S. House districts, are being wooed perhaps like no delegates have been before. Delegates can even get discounted hotel rooms from one candidate.
They should enjoy it while they can. All the attention ends abruptly May 8, the day of the state Republican convention, where delegates will vote on governor, Congress, other state elected offices and multi-county legislative races. In contested races, if one candidate gets 60 percent of the vote in any round of a "preferential" ballot system, he or she wins the nomination outright. Otherwise, the top two vote-getters go to a June 22 primary election.
The nine GOP gubernatorial candidates, and the three Republicans in each of the 2nd and 3rd congressional districts, are now contacting as many delegates as they can — talking issues and providing a few freebies to catch delegates' attention.
There are no Republican Party rules about proper conduct in wooing delegates, says Chris Bleak, state GOP executive director. "There is state law" against "buying" votes, however, and Bleak says if party bosses hear about any improper conduct they'll call the individuals in for a talking-to.
A rumor about free hotel rooms for delegates near the convention site appears only partly true: Gubernatorial candidate Fred Lampropoulos has worked out a deal where some selected delegates can buy a room for a discounted price.
"I am not buying votes," said Gov. Olene Walker, who said her campaign won't be providing any hotel rooms to delegates. "I am working hard to convince delegates that I am the best candidate with proven leadership and new vision."
Jon Huntsman Jr. said his campaign is reserving hotel rooms near Sandy's South Towne Center — where the convention will be held — for the weekend of the convention, but those "three or four rooms" will be used by campaign staff, not by delegates.
State law prohibits any candidate (or anyone else, for that matter) from trying to "induce" any voter or delegate to go to the polls, attend any party caucus or convention, or provide any "personal services" to a voter or delegate with an aim toward "affecting" an election.
Lampropoulos campaign manager Dave Hansen said the candidate's firm, Merit Medical, "does so much business with these (Sandy) hotels, we've gotten a deal for delegates." Rooms that normally run from between $89 to $129 a night will be made available for delegates for $69 a night.
Whether the hotels' discounts will be listed as in-kind contributions on Lampropoulos' campaign finance reports is yet to be determined, Hansen said.
Hansen said Lampropoulos just wants to make it easier for rural delegates to attend the convention — the discounts are only good for the Friday and Saturday nights surrounding the May 8 event. But whether delegates must support Lampropoulos to be invited to use the discounts is "still being talked about," Hansen said.
Meanwhile, the campaigns are working hard to contact delegates, give them information and lock up commitments.
"I think maybe half of the delegates are undecided" as the pre-convention campaign begins, said former U.S. Rep. Jim Hansen, running this year for governor.
"We're all doing about the same things — calling delegates, inviting them to breakfasts, lunches and dinners, telephoning, sending out mail," said House Speaker Marty Stephens, R-Farr West, another gubernatorial candidate.
Stephens declined to say if he's sending out a DVD, which has replaced the VCR tape as the new means of mass delegate communication. "You don't want to disclose to the other guys what you may be doing," he said.
Lampropoulos, who has already spent more than $1 million running for governor as of the first of this year, sent out one DVD before the March 23 party caucuses to 10,000 likely caucus-goers. More DVDs will go to the 3,500 newly selected delegates, said Dave Hansen.
Jim Hansen said he's not spending money on the delegate battle as some others are. "You go to a Lincoln Day dinner in a county and maybe there's 1,000 signs by (another candidate) out there. I'm doing a DVD, got some dinners scheduled at the old Salt Lake Hardware building and at Little America."
Some campaigns are spending around $200,000 on the seven-week delegate battle, stretching from the March 23 neighborhood caucuses where the delegates were selected to the May 8 convention.
"I think I may spend around $50,000" on the delegate fight, said Jim Hansen, a 22-year U.S. House veteran who never faced a serious intra-party challenge after going to Congress.
Gubernatorial candidate Nolan Karras, a former Utah House speaker and current chair of the Board of Regents, said his seven-week spending will be "north of $100,000."
In 1980, when Jim Hansen won the 1st District GOP nomination and unseated a long-time Democratic incumbent that November, Hansen recalls that his GOP challenger "came to the state convention with bands, banners, all kinds of things. I didn't do any of that. I just talked, and won 81 percent of the delegate vote," eliminating his intra-party challenge.
But times have changed, he admits. "You go to these county conventions and it seems to be more about (county party) fund raising than anything else."
Greg Hawkins, who this year is challenging Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, in the 3rd Congressional District, said he wasted a lot of time and effort in his 2000 intra-party challenge to Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "We were green then, didn't know how to" effectively go after delegates. Hawkins fell just short of getting 40 percent of the delegate vote, which would have forced a primary.
Hawkins this year is sending out four different audio tapes, not DVDs. "Delegates can listen to tapes in their cars — no one takes the time to watch a DVD at home" even if they have a DVD player, he said. He's putting out a number of mailings to delegates in April, following up each mailing with a telephone call asking if the delegate got the material, if they read it, and what they think of it.
"If we turn out our delegates, we'll get more than 40 percent" and force a primary, said Hawkins.
"The governor's race is getting all the attention, we know that. We have to work smarter — and we are, spending between $80,000 and $100,000."
Like other non-millionaire candidates who can't just write their campaign a personal check, Hawkins says he has to keep some money in reserve for the primary he's counting on. But if you don't spend enough pre-convention, you may not make the primary - a tough balance, he adds. Karras, an investment counselor, likes the current convention/primary system in Utah, which he says gives an average Joe a shot.
"It allows a guy like me to run. With big money, those (rich) guys can blow me out of the water getting name ID. But I can compete (in the pre-convention delegate fight). I wouldn't even be in this race if we had only an open primary system, with all the media buys the rich guys" can afford, he said.
Hawkins noted that big money can be muted in a delegate race if the candidate doesn't run smart.
Several years ago, Hawkins recalled, two millionaires spending a lot of their own money challenged then-2nd District Rep. Merrill Cook within the Republican Party. One lost in the convention and the other ousted Cook in the GOP primary, but lost to Jim Matheson in the general election.
E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com