CALEB WARNOCK - Daily Herald | Posted: Tuesday, March 21, 2006 11:00 pm
President Bush may be fueling a Democratic fervor in Utah County.
Democratic caucuses around Utah County saw large turnouts Tuesday night in meetings to choose officers and delegates, doubling the number expected for a nonpresidential election year. Delegates vote on their party's candidates at their county and state conventions. If there's more than one person running for an office, and no one gets 60 percent of the delegates' votes, the top two candidates go to a primary election. The Utah County Democratic convention is April 25.
In Orem, which has the largest Democratic caucus in the county, organizers had brought only three sign-in sheets and had to use notebook paper when about 110 people showed up, 80 of whom signed in. Organizers in south and north Utah County also reported turnouts twice what was expected.
"President Bush has turned me off from voting Republican forever," said Jacqueline Steffes of Orem. "And it isn't the war, although I don't believe in pre-emptive strikes. It is his wholesale sellout of the American people in favor of big corporations. ... That and the Dubai port deal. I'm really sick about that. He talks about how he is so interested in homeland security and terrorist attacks and then we see his true colors when a corporation needs our ports. It's just unbelievable."
Steffes's mother, Elizabeth Love, said she came Tuesday to get involved because "I'm so distraught over the national scene -- the complete ignoring of the national debt by Republicans, the war, being lied to to get into the war, having both the House and Senate roll over and play dead for Bush."
Considering that Democrats struggle -- to put it politely -- to win a majority in Utah County, does she believe her participation can make a real differencefi
"No, I don't have any genuine hope," she says bluntly. "But you have to stand up and be counted, even if it is unpopular to be a Democrat. It is your job as a citizen to stand up for what you believe in."
Eda Hill said she came out "because my voice is not being heard -- on education, the war, what's happening with prescriptions, the national debt."
Between two Provo caucuses, about 130 people attended, said organizers, also about double the amount expected for a nonpresidential election.
"I'd say at least a third were new people I hadn't seen before," said Bonnie Bennett, who organized one of the Provo caucuses. "That was very surprising because usually it is just the old stalwarts who show up. I'm really encouraged because the young people is what you build on."
Candace Jacobson said she had never been to a caucus before but came out Tuesday because of issues including a Utah Senate bill that would have allowed the Legislature to override the governor's refusal to allow nuclear storage here.
"If 84 percent of Utah objects to nuclear waste being stored here and the Republicans pass a law like Senate Bill 70, they are completely out of touch, or really it is all about pandering to lobby interests and not the people who elected them," she said, noting she was pleased at Tuesday's Democratic turnout.
"I think it is a sign of the times. I think people are disenchanted and want to see change."
Caleb Warnock can be reached at 443-3263 or cwarnock@heraldextra.com.
This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D1.