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If Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. wanted to, he could force out State Republican Party Chairman Joe Cannon.

Publicly cordial, but privately cool, Huntsman and Cannon have limited interaction with each other. Huntsman openly blames state party leaders - namely Cannon - for negative campaign tactics in the run-up to the last election. And Party Vice Chairwoman Enid Greene's decision to run as Huntsman opponent Nolan Karras' running mate leading up to the Republican primary last year raised suspicions among the governor's supporters about the party's official neutrality.

Cannon insists that the two have repaired relations since the governor took office.

That may be true. Huntsman will not exert his authority as the nominal head of the party this year. Instead, the governor will bide his time.

The tension between Cannon and Huntsman lends an air of intrigue to the sometimes bureaucratic morass of the Republican organizing convention, scheduled for Saturday at Salt Lake Community College's Redwood campus. Much less glamorous than the nominating convention, where delegates pick which Republican candidates will appear on the ballot, the organizing convention can devolve into a mess of procedural debate and attempted party constitution and rule amendments.

At the same time, more than 3,000 GOP delegates will pick their party's leaders. Cannon is running for a rare third two-year term. Two conservative challengers hope to knock him off. Greene faces several challenges for her post. And Party Secretary Candace Daly also has competition.

Huntsman plans to stay out of it. In an arcane practice followed unofficially by Democrats as well, party leaders defer to the highest officeholder up for re-election to "choose" if the party chairman stays or goes. In 2006, U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch will run for a sixth term. Hatch's friendship with the party chairman dates back 20 years, to the days when Cannon bought Geneva Steel with the senator's help. Hatch asked Cannon to run for a third term.

"Sen. Hatch will want to have some [control over] the leadership and direction of the party. I want to cede that to him," Huntsman says. "I'm going to want to have that kind of autonomy and maneuverability during the run-up to my [2008] election."

Although he is stepping back, Huntsman will be watching party leadership. He still is concerned about the party's role in negative ads and brochures sent out on congressional candidate John Swallow's behalf. The mailings, produced for the National Republican Congressional Committee and mailed using the state party's post office account, criticized Democratic Congressman Jim Matheson for backing President Bush's Medicare drug plan, among other things. Huntsman complained to Cannon, the Republican National Committee and the NRCC.

"It was disastrous. The tone and the tenor and impact that it had more broadly on the body politic was disastrous," Huntsman says. "It hurt the party."

Cannon agrees. He is surprised the governor would blame party leadership for that nasty campaign. He says as soon as he learned the party was involved in the mailings, he cut off the mail account and blocked several brochures from being mailed.

"I'm actually the guy who pulled the plug," Cannon says.

Next year, the governor says, he will step in to stop such "slash-and-burn tactics." But for now, "I'm going to defer to Sen. Hatch" on party leaders.

Whether Republican delegates go along with that gentlemen's agreement is another matter. Convention delegates generally are more conservative than the party membership as a whole. But the delegates who will gather next weekend are the same representatives who picked between eight hopefuls for the governor's office, dumping popular Gov. Olene Walker and setting up a primary between Karras and Huntsman. While Huntsman claims a number of new, moderate delegates, Walker gets as much credit as anyone for recruiting new delegates, party insiders say. And corralling a majority to vote one way is nearly impossible.

"It's in the hands of 3,500 folks. It's hard for any one candidate to claim responsibility," says former party director Scott Simpson.

Regardless of Hatch's support, Cannon faces strident criticism from the right wing of the party. Archconservative Republicans call him a "tyrant" who bypasses the GOP Constitution and party bylaws to stifle dissenting voices.

One-time challenger Drew Chamberlain dropped out of the race - in part as a strategic move to consolidate conservative delegates' votes. Two other conservatives, Jeremy Friedbaum and Patrick Reagan, will challenge Cannon.

"I'll vote for the alternative rather than give Joe Cannon my endorsement," says Mike Ridgway, who was ejected from the Salt Lake County Party's Central Committee and was removed as a delegate. Ridgway plans to challenge his removal at Saturday's convention. But he says Cannon and other party leaders have changed the rules and stacked committees to silence opposition.

"All we have wanted is a party where the process is fair enough that if you work hard, you can win," Ridgway says. "They want a process where they can guarantee outcomes. The Republican Party has problems."

Greene says such conspiracy theories are the product of the paranoid minds of "party dissidents."

"The extremists in our party get far more attention than they ought to get. They're just noisier," she says.

Cannon acknowledges that some of the party rules have changed in advance of Saturday's convention. For example, delegates no longer can propose party constitution and bylaws amendments from the floor. A Constitution and Bylaws Committee reviewed proposed changes earlier this year and did not forward any to delegates. He points out that a resolution criticizing that new policy will be debated at the convention. The changes, Cannon says, were spurred by complaints from rank-and-file delegates frustrated by "endless, agonizing" procedural debate at earlier conventions. Many simply leave.

"If you look at the number of minutes taken up by this very faction, debating and driving other delegates crazy, their voice gets heard," Cannon says. "This is the conspiracy of the vast body of delegates. And they voted with their feet."

After weathering complaints from candidates and right-wing factions alike, Cannon says this is his last bid for party office.

Greene is deflecting criticism - some from the governor's supporters - as well. She dismisses grumbling about her decision to take a leave of absence from her party post during Karras' run for governor, rather than resign outright. David Spackman and Davis County Party Chairman Todd Weiler are vying for her seat. Greene says her short-term commitment to the Karras campaign was "absolutely clean and aboveboard." She notes she backed Huntsman in the general election.

"If [Huntsman and his camp] have a problem, they need to develop a thicker skin," she says. "I just did what I thought was the right thing. I'll let the delegates decide."