This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2010, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Utah Republicans, like their counterparts throughout the nation, had a stellar election year in 2010, but the conservative armada failed to slay one of its most coveted targets — Utah State School Board member Kim Burningham.

The fact that the right-wing arm of the Republican Party spent so much time and resources trying to defeat a school board member — who used to be a Republican legislator — in a nonpartisan race says much about the priorities and the agenda of that cabal. The fact that all its might could not defeat the incumbent board member speaks to the disconnect between that conservative wing and rank-and-file Republicans when it comes to education issues.

Burningham has been a target of the Republican Party power base since, as school board chairman, he opposed the Legislature's attempt to give tax-credit vouchers to parents who enroll their children in private schools. He supported the citizens referendum that repealed that legislation in 2007.

But there are other reasons not related to education that made the GOP want Burningham's scalp.

He is hated by the right wing in the Legislature for his leadership role in Utahns for Ethical Government, which is attempting to put an initiative on the ballot to create an independent ethics commission. To counter that effort, the Legislature passed its own ethics reform legislation that voters approved Nov. 2 as a constitutional amendment.

And he supported an initiative to take the authority to create legislative and congressional districts out of the hands of the Legislature.

Burningham represents Bountiful's District 5 on the school board, and his opponent, Nicole Toomey Davis, benefited from the vast resources of the Republican Party and its right-wing auxiliaries such as the Eagle Forum and Parents for Choice in Education.

He earlier survived an attempt by that right-wing coalition to keep him from even appearing on the ballot through the state's flawed nominating process.

Then, shortly before the election, a memo went out to Republican legislative chairs in Davis County ordering them to distribute a meet-the-candidate invitation to all the precinct chairs with Davis as the guest of honor.

The call to battle was sent by Dalane England, vice president of the Utah Eagle Forum. She also hosted the event at her home.

Davis also was a guest on the Saturday morning Red Meat Radio program on K-TALK. The show's conservative co-hosts, Sen. Howard Stephenson and Rep. Greg Hughes, both R-Draper, lavished praise on her and heaped vitriol on the despised Burningham.

Davis also was the beneficiary of an e-mail sent to Davis County constituents by Sen. Dan Liljenquist, R-Bountiful, urging them to vote for the challenger against Burningham. Because the e-mail was sent just two days before the election and Liljenquist was actively campaigning among his Republican Senate colleagues to replace Sen. Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, as Senate president, the last-minute endorsement was seen by some as an attempt by Liljenquist to endear himself to the GOP's right wing.

Davis' campaign received $1,000 from House Speaker David Clark, $500 from Arena Communications, run by long-time Republican Party operative Peter Valcarce, and $2,500 from the Utah Tech PAC, whose board members include former Republican legislator and Eagle Forum darling Jeff Alexander and former GOP State Chairman Stan Lockhart.

Despite all that, Burningham won with nearly 60 percent of the vote in a county that elected Republicans by a wide margin in every partisan race. The voters, just as they did in the voucher referendum three years ago, rejected their own party's position on education, choosing instead to stick with those, like Burningham, who argue for ways to increase revenues to bolster public education.

Email Paul Rolly at prolly@sltrib.com —