Chaffetz for Congress

At this year's Utah Republican state convention, Jason Chaffetz nearly became our district's newest Republican nominee for U.S. Congress. Because he failed to receive a necessary 60% majority, he will face Chris Cannon in a primary election in late June. He could use plenty of volunteer help between now and then. If you believe that Jason has sufficiently earned your support, then I encourage you to sign up ASAP to help his campaign, which you can do here. Perhaps our local RLC Meetup group will distribute literature for him at some of our activities in June.

I did not hear Chaffetz's speech at the convention (I helped pass out flyers in the morning, but left early for another commitment) and do not know much about him. His website (at least a couple of weeks ago when I checked it) only indicated that he's for cracking down on illegal immigration and opposes Chris Cannon because of his attendance record in Congress. I neither received nor requested further information from him, as I was not a delegate at the convention. Why should Ron Paul supporters help Chaffetz?

As a state delegate, I spent a significant amount of time talking with the candidates, attending their meetings and asking them questions. Although I disagree with Jason on some issues, which I'll detail below, here is why I believe Jason Chaffetz deserves the support of Ron Paul folks:

1. My number one concern as I have spoken to Jason is his commitment to not cut defense spending. Nonetheless, I am convinced Chaffetz is not a war-mongering Republican, as Cannon is, for these reasons:

a. In the Provo city debate, when asked about the "constant state of war", both Leavitt and Cannon went on to describe our country in peril, the need to fight our "enemies", etc. (the typical neocon propaganda). Jason, on the other hand, reiterated his support for Bush's statement before he was elected, "We shouldn't be in the business of nation building and being the world's policemen".

b. Jason has expressed his support for repealing the worst parts of the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act, both of which Cannon voted for. Cannon also voted for the FISA amendment, all of which are unconstitutional.

c. Jason strongly feels we have abused and overused our National Guard.

d. Jason is at least willing to be honest in expressing that Iraq was fought over oil, not terrorism.


2. Chaffetz has pledged to fight to dramatically reduce the size and scope of the federal budget. In discussing specifics with him, he would fight to cut virtually every single function of government, except for defense spending. Cannon, in contrast, voted for the largest new entitlement program in at least the last 30 years (the Medicare Prescription program) and continually voted for the largest budgets in our history (even under a Republican controlled Congress).

3. Jason would eliminate the Department of Education, and repeal No Child Left Behind. Although Cannon now supports that position too, incredible he bowed to pressure from Pres. Bush and increased funding for the Dept. of Ed. and signed the NCLB law into place. If Cannon would have led Republican opposition in the House against the bill, it never would have passed.

4. Jason did an amazing job of getting his message out on relatively very little money (less than $100,000). He spent his money wisely, recruited tons of volunteers, and kept to his budget. (His candidacy should be a key learning lesson for future liberty-minded candidates). As such, he is not in political debt to numerous campaign donors to pay them back for their financial support. And likewise, he has taken a pledge to never earmark money for these supporters.

Chris Cannon, on the other hand, has received (and spent) nearly a million dollars already, primarily from large corporations and PACs that expect and continually receive his support. Cannon has refused earmark transparency.

5. Jason has publicly expressed support for Joe's NAU opposition. Although not well educated on the subject, he is very opposed to the proposed NAFTA superhighways and anything which would weaken American sovereignty. On the other hand, Cannon has consistently supported NAFTA, CAFTA, and nearly every other act which weakens our sovereignty (all in the fallacious name of free-trade).

6. Finally, and probably most important, Chris Cannon has proven to sell-out on the principles he espoused to get elected. Although every politician has that potential, and Chafettz is no different, he has shown signs of being willing to stand against his party to do what is right. Until he is elected and proves otherwise, he far more deserves our support than someone that has already perjured his oath to uphold and defend the Constitution.


Lastly, I want to reiterate one of Larry Meyer's excellent lessons to be learned from the convention: "Lesson: Since liberty-minded activists are not a majority at this point, we need to be friendly with and work together with some people and groups who maybe don't agree with us 100%."

Jason is a perfect example of one of these non-100% candidates. He is far better than his competition and I believe, with our support, we can actually have a great deal of influence with him if he gets elected.

Please join me in supporting him during the coming 1 1/2 months before the primary. I plan on sending a letter to each of the families in my Precinct I represent reporting on my duties as a delegate and expressing similar thoughts to those above.

Very thorough analysis. I couldn't agree more. Matt and I have been helping Jason for some months now and we both believe that he is open minded and not only able, but willing to be influenced by Utah voters.

He's looking to collect names of people who want to help him in the Primary, so send him an email asap and let him know you're on board. I think this is the best chance we've had to unseat Cannon in a long time. But Cannon thinks he just hit a home run by getting through convention to a primary. Utahns elect incumbents. We have a huge fight to convince everyone that Cannon's "influence" doesn't add up to a hill of beans in DC as far as our freedom is concerned.

Stori Misbach

Meeting to organize Jason's grassroots efforts...

2008 May 15 (Thu.) @ 7:00 PM
Jason Chaffetz' home
315 Westfield Circle
Alpine, UT 84004-1594

It's a tight race between Chaffetz and Cannon!

Deseret News: "Race Tight Between Chaffetz and Cannon" by Bob Bernick Jr. (2008 May 22)

Fundraising Open House

2008 Jun 03 (Tue.)
6:30 PM - 8:30 PM

Chaffetz home
315 Westfield Circle
Alpine, UT 84004-1594

Donations will be accepted either on site or online.

One thing to consider with this Republican primary between Chaffetz and Cannon, is that many want to hold Chris Cannon accountable for his past actions such as supporting NAFTA, CAFTA, and for his not voting for HJR77 that would have kept our Panama Canal and Canal zone. As punishment, the consequence hoped for by those unhappy citizens, for these acts is to vote Congressman Cannon out of office.

But, what if voting him out during a primary election means he is only replaced by another neo-con? Well, at least the new neo-con can see that an incumbent can be replaced for his misdeeds. Also, the incumbent has then paid the price for his earlier decisions by the loss of his office as a just reward for his actions.

The other result? You then have Chaffetz running in the general election, but he will yet have that other election to get through. You have, at the primary election accomplished one goal, removal of an incumbent as a reward for his "transgressions" if you will, and now you have a general election to decide between Chaffetz and other possible candidates to support such as from the Constitution party, or the Libertarian Party, or the Democratic Party, etc.

Of course, here in District #3, a widely-Republican dominated district, the outcome of the general election seems almost sure that the then successful Republican Primary contender, Jason Chaffetz, would ascend to the Congressional throne, but remember, there have been past upsets, such as Bill Orton, a democrat, elected in Utah's 3rd. Maybe there would be another upset if enough organized voters, after the primary election, then, switched horses from Chaffetz to a more constitutionally sound candidate from another party, if one can be identified. Anyone see a candidate for that change of horses?

You can easily see, by the political games that must be played in party politics, why the Founding Fathers detested political parties and hoped our nation wouldn't fall into the political party system, which they understood to be a trap for factions, or cabals, (see: The Federalist Papers pages 80-82) or what could be called political conspiracies to use to control the government for their own purposes.

The Founders termed these political conspiracies as "the mischief of faction." Concerning his opinions as expressed in Essay #10 in the The Federalist Papers concerning faction and cabals, in modern terms, James Madison would be called a "conspiracy theorist." I feel right in tune with him.

I may not agree with Jason on everything, but I would rather put someone in office who I agree with 85% of the time rather than 5% of the time.

I have contributed to Jason's campaign. I would suggest everyone do the same. They will have door knockers available soon (things to hank on peoples doors). I hope they say the primary is June 24th. I plan to canvas my neighborhood with them. It would be great if we could get as many people to do this as possible.

On a side note, here's another reason to be mad at Chris Cannon for voting for CAFTA, and NAFTA We should send this to as many delegates as we can

uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TShPYA-OuPs

I heard Jason speak to a bunch of Ron Paul folks last Saturday.

He's reluctant to take on the Fed and has no problem with continuing the "war" on drugs, sadly. But in most ways, he's right on the mark. He'd rather end our post-war occupation of Iraq sooner rather than later, does not favor wars of aggression, wants to end the many "scary" parts of the so-called Patriot Act, opposes the NAU, wants to secure our borders, wants freer markets in energy, et cetera. So, if he'll be true to his word, then he'll be a significant improvement over Chris Cannon.