This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A political conundrum that has been developing this month concerns Gov. Gary Herbert's condemnation by the leader of the GOP-dominated House of Representatives while he's been praised by the Democrats.
If that trend continues, it will be interesting to see how that bodes with the heavily partisan delegates at the State Republican Convention next year when Herbert faces a right-wing challenge for the GOP nomination.
The political camp of libertarian-minded Jonathan Johnson would be more than happy to use the Democrats' love of Herbert as a political guillotine to cut off Herbert's chances at the stridently partisan convention.
And while House Minority Leader Brian King, D-Salt Lake, has been sincere in his appreciation that Herbert has worked hard to forge compromises to secure health care of Utah's poor, his complimentary tone could handicap the governor.
If past GOP conventions are any measure, being friendly to Democrats is like hiding undocumented immigrants in your attic so they won't be deported.
You can be with the majority of the people in your state, and even the majority of folks in your party, but if you don't win over the delegates, whose extreme sentiments often run counter to the majority, the general electorate won't get a chance to vote for you because you won't get past the convention to be on the ballot.
A case in point was the candidacy of Jon Huntsman Jr. in 2004. It was evident that Huntsman was popular among Utahns and was the odds-on favorite among Republicans. But to even get on the ballot, he had to fib a little bit when he went to GOP delegate gatherings because the litmus test to be a true Republican that year was vouchers.
Huntsman, an advocate of public education, was no big fan of giving vouchers so parents can pay for private school tuition with the help of taxpayers.
But he couldn't tell the delegates that. He ran as a pro-voucher candidate.
When the voucher bill passed by the Legislature was put on the ballot through a signature gathering process and voters overwhelming repealed it, the die-hards resented then-Gov. Huntsman's lack of support for keeping vouchers.
But he did the right thing, because he stood up for the majority of Utahns against the tyranny of the delegate minority.
Same with Herbert. The majority of Utahns want the kind of Medicaid expansion he has worked for, which the Legislature has squelched.
But being congratulated by a Democratic legislative leader while facing criticism from a Republican legislative leader will likely hurt him at the convention.
House Speaker Greg Hughes was piercingly critical of Herbert in an email he sent to all legislators for the governor's refusal to call a special session to give lawmakers a chance to tweak the controversial Count My Vote that the Republican Party has fought so diligently to kill and to fix the school board candidate nominating process that was struck down by a federal judge last year.
Hughes blasted Herbert for the governor's comments that the Legislature needs to fix those things while not giving the Legislature the chance to fix them in a special session before the year ends.
Perhaps Herbert is worried the Legislature might do something in the special session that would hinder a key part of the Count My Vote law which allows candidates to get on their party's primary ballot through the signature gathering process as well as the caucus/convention system that relies on delegate support for ballot access.
After all, if he continues to get love from the Democrats, he may need the signature gathering alternative to skirt the fangs of the rabid delegates.