This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Not only did Sen. Orrin Hatch fare well in the competition for delegates at the Republican neighborhood caucuses earlier this month, the entire anti-establishment tea party movement took a bath, with many rabid right-wingers getting tossed out as delegates.

And now the rejected are screaming: "No fair!"

Odd, because it was the tea party types who used Utah's unique caucus-convention system of nominating candidates to gain power in the first place. And they have been the ones steadfastly defending that system against criticism that it puts too much power in the hands of a few who religiously attend their caucus meetings to advance a narrow agenda.

In recent years the most passionately extreme conservatives have dominated the caucuses. They were good at stacking the meetings to get their hand-picked choices elected as delegates. Those delegates, in turn, would nominate the most extreme candidates at the convention.

Can you say Mike Lee?

It is this system that has populated the Legislature with lawmakers who routinely vote against the wishes of the majority of Utahns and instead push the agenda of a narrow base.

Can you say Gayle Ruzicka?

Examples of laws not supported even by a majority of Republicans include the private school voucher bill that was repealed by referendum a few years ago, and the sex education bill this year that was vetoed by Gov. Gary Herbert after a deluge of complaints from the public.

But this year, something funny happened at the neighborhood caucuses.

They had a record turnout, prodded, no doubt, by LDS Church leadership's encouragement to members to attend their neighborhood caucuses. That carefully worded plea was motivated by a concern that political extremists were dominating the nominating process.

And now that the large turnout has resulted in many of the tea party delegates losing their seats, it's those very people who once lauded the system who now are lamenting it.

Call it the Thursday night massacre for the Patrick Henry devotees.

Here are some of the casualties:

D.J. Shanz, outspoken tea party devotee who ran against moderate Republican Rep. Becky Edwards in Davis County two years ago, is out.

There is Holly Richardson, popular tea party blogger and former legislator who resigned to work on the U.S. Senate campaign of Dan Liljenquist, who is the top challenger to incumbent Sen. Orrin Hatch. She's out, too.

Also gone is right-wing blogger and author Connor Boyack, who left his position as social media director in the Mike Lee campaign two years ago because — get this — Lee was too liberal for him.

Brandon Beckham, who called supporters of the guest-worker immigration bill, HB116, "traitors," is a delegate no longer, along with anti-immigration activist Arthuro Morales.

Peter Cannon, the Davis School Board member who suggested there should be two separate lunch lines in school cafeterias, one for those whose lunches are subsidized and one for those who are not subsidized, got sacked, as did popular right-wing blogger Michael Jolley.

Joel Wright, who ran for a place on the Utah County Commission in 2010 and hitched his campaign to the Mike Lee bandwagon, lost, and Greg Peterson, who runs the annual Rocky Mountain Conservative Barbecue, a tea party event, was likewise shown the door.

Matthew Bell , the anti-immigration activist who pushed the West Valley City Council to pass an E-Verify measure? Gone.

So, too, is Jared Law, head of the Utah 9/12 project, a Glenn Beck group.

And now, on Republican blog sites, the rejected are whining. And why did they lose, according to many of the posters on those sites? It was the old people who did it, you see. It was the "blue hairs."

Well, good for us. —