In politics, you’re either on-message or you’re losing. Let’s get to it.
Welcome to On Message, a weekly look at where the battle lines are drawn and who is winning the war of words.
This week… Tailor the Message.
Last weekend, the Republican Party held nominating conventions in several counties across the state and most of the media attention was focused on Davis County.
That makes sense because, while Utah and Washington Counties have elected more right-leaning legislators, the county directly north of Salt Lake has produced the level-headed leadership including House Speaker Brad Wilson, Senate President Stuart Adams and the Senate chair of the powerful Executive Appropriations Committee, Jerry Stevenson.
The Salt Lake Tribune’s report of the proceedings focused on the “lurch to the right” based on some of the candidates who won, others who forced primaries as well as the messaging from incumbents who either emerged victorious or lived to fight another day.
Exhibit A for the conservative shift was the loss of Representative Steve Handy from Layton, who has been a more moderate-leaning member of the House. He lost to Trevor Lee and is now out because he chose to leave his fate up to the delegates.
Others, like Representatives Melissa Garff Ballard and Ray Ward failed to gain sufficient support from delegates but move on to the primary election because they did gather enough signatures.
Speaker Wilson had enough support to avoid a primary, garnering the required 70 percent plus one.
But the overall idea that the party has lurched to the right, may be a bit premature.
We have every reason to think Lee will vote to the right of Handy, his predecessor. But everyone else is in a primary where the going is a lot smoother for a moderate and being an incumbent turns back into an advantage.
As for the talking points being more right-leaning and in many cases some good-old-fashioned red meat… that’s no surprise.
Changing your message to suit your audience is essential in politics, and it’s no secret the delegates are far more right-wing than the average Utah Republican voter. So, when a politician goes to ask for delegate votes, he is smart to tailor his message to that audience.
That isn’t the same as lying; it’s just focusing on where your record or principles align with the voter.
Governor Cox, who is not up for re-election, spoke to the Davis County delegates and emphasized his support for the 2nd Amendment… because it would be silly to walk in and talk to that crowd about his veto of the transgender athletics bill. He’s not lying about either, he’s choosing which message will play the best.
The same is true for Speaker Wilson. While he is lauded by many across the state and political spectrum for his focus on saving the Great Salt Lake, that isn’t the message that will deliver to the delegates. Instead, he focused on tax cuts (where he has a very strong, conservative track record) and on his role reining-in emergency powers from the Executive Branch and unelected health officials. Those are messages much more likely to earn a delegate vote.
Hearing level-headed, mainstream conservatives highlight their most conservative votes during the convention shouldn’t be a surprise, nor does it mean they’ve suddenly shifted to the far right.
It means they are in office for a reason and they know how to tailor their message to the audience.
And those messages will shift back to the center as we move into the primary phase and the delegates no longer wield their outsized power. For more than a decade, the issues that matter to delegates have not aligned with the issues that matter to Republicans en masse. It’s why the signature path to the ballot is so vital to our election system and it is why politicians can tell the delegates what they want to hear and then get back to business.
That’s it for this week.
More On Message in the next issue of the Utah Political Underground.
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