Orem » Steven C. Diamond was feeling like a winner after Saturday's Utah County Republican convention.
Even though Diamond, a financial adviser, lost the chairman's race to Taylor Oldroyd, he believes he still won.
His logic?
Oldroyd and the rest of the new GOP leadership adopted a platform favoring the issues of transparency and technology, which he ran on in the chairman's race.
"Even though we lost the election, we won," Diamond said. "If you can get people to change the culture, you've won."
Oldroyd, chief executive of the Utah County Association of Realtors, defeated Diamond 440-391 in balloting at Canyon View Junior High School.
Diamond said the turnout of 847 delegates -- nearly 69 percent -- was another victory for him. He said slightly more than 400 turned out last time.
Oldroyd, who replaces Marian Monnahan, said Diamond didn't hold the patent on being transparent or using technology such as the Internet and social networking sites to better communicate with delegates and the public.
"Improving the way we communicate is something we are going to do anyway," Oldroyd said.
Both men campaigned on platforms to make the party more transparent and ensure its bylaws and rules are evenly applied.
"We were in a good position no matter how it turned out," Oldroyd said.
The delegates also elected Mark Cluff as vice chairman, Lisa Shepherd as secretary and Lynn Taylor as treasurer.
For Shepherd, the election was a moment of personal vindication.
Last year, she challenged state Rep. Keith Grover and was defeated after she claims she was told by Republican leaders to stay home and raise her children instead of getting into politics.
"To have made it on the first ballot was great," said Shepherd, who was in a three-way race for the post.
Shepherd deliberately eschewed endorsements from elected officials. She said the secretary's post must be absolutely transparent, and she believed the way to achieve that was to run on her professional experience.
The convention delegates also heard from U.S. Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, outgoing state GOP Chairman Stan Lockhart and Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert,
But the speaker who got the rock-star treatment was 3rd District Congressman Jason Chaffetz, who defeated Chris Cannon in last year's GOP primary. He received a standing ovation when he stood up, and again when he sat down.
"Hello, fellow terrorists," Chaffetz told the standing-room-only crowd, in reference to last week's controversial Department of Homeland Security memo warning about terrorism threats from far-right extremists and veterans.
Like other speakers, Chaffetz railed on President Barack Obama for his stimulus package, tax plan and recent foreign policy statements.
"We will not support a president who goes around the world to apologize for our being the economic and military superpower," Chaffetz said.
Bennett compared the Republican Party to the Continental Army, in that it must carefully choose its battles with the Obama administration if it is to regain power.
"All we have to do is be smarter than Barack Obama," Bennett said.
Shurtleff, who has been testing the waters for a run against Bennett this year, said he was at the convention as attorney general, not as a potential Senate candidate.
