When State Party Chairwoman Enid Greene fired executive director Jeff Hartley on Tuesday, she cited the excessive debt burdening the party and explained that she and Hartley had different philosophies about how much debt was acceptable. The debt being carried under Hartley's watch, she said, was not acceptable.

But a significant part of that debt accompanied President George W. Bush's trip to Salt Lake City last summer when he spoke to the American Legion during its national convention.

The party arranged for a pro-Bush rally when the president arrived at the Executive Airport to deliver his speech. It paid vendors more than $50,000 for lighting, sound, cameras and seating for the event, with the anticipation the White House or the national GOP would repay the local host.

Hartley and other Republican officials were unable to persuade the national folks to repay them because the White House saw the rally as a political event for the benefit of the state party, while Bush's appearance was an official presidential visit.

An appeal was made to Sen. Orrin Hatch since he had a personal fund-raiser for his re-election bid featuring Bush and raked in a sizable amount of cash. Hatch, however, said he had nothing to do with the rally and it was not his debt. So despite pleas to several sources, the state party ate the $50,000, which contributed to a $185,000 debt by the time the election was over in November.

The other Trojan horse was the offer from voucher supporters to create, prepare and eventually pay for direct-mail fliers in selected districts that Parents for Choice in Education had targeted. Candidates in favor of vouchers were put up against six Democratic incumbents opposed to vouchers that the group hoped to defeat. The party put its name on the fliers as the sponsor and used its mailings to distribute them. Some of the districts were peppered by more than 20 fliers and, in the end, the voucher folks owed the party about $140,000, which it paid back in increments.

Greene, who had been the party's vice chair before replacing Chairman Joe Cannon - who resigned shortly after the election - became increasingly uncomfortable with the unpaid debt owed by the voucher supporters and had threatened to ask lawmakers to delay action on voucher legislation until it was paid. But even after the voucher folks repaid the debt, more billings came in for mass mailings prior to the election.

Greene's angst toward Hartley might have been aggravated by the fact the Republicans sustained a net loss in the House, despite the continuing debt from the election that hovered between $150,000 and $180,000.

Party insiders complained that too much attention and resources were paid to the races important to Parents for Choice in Education. They were all traditionally Democratic districts and the Democrat defeated the Republican voucher candidate in each race. Had more attention been paid to swing districts, some Republicans argued, the GOP might have picked up more seats.

So now Hartley is gone and Greene is assuming both her chair duties and the executive director's day-to-day stewardship of the party. Her term expires when the party holds its organizing convention and she has indicated she will not seek re-election. Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has indicated he will not get involved in selecting a new chairman, who typically would work closely with the governor on the direction of the party.

That leaves no clear choice for the next chairman, who probably will then have to pick someone with little experience in the party's daily operations as the next executive director.