The Utah County Republican Party held a convention last Saturday and, because it is dominated by a ideological fringe, reinforced its image as the extremist party in Utah County.  

The delegates re-nominated a group of legislators who, when not directed by the Eagle Forum, are following their own extreme right wing tendencies.  These include Chris Herrod, who was focusing on weakening child safety seat belt laws and got nearly all of his Utah County legislative colleagues to vote along with him; Becky Lockhart, who has proposed privatizing the state hospital in Provo; John Dougall, who believes poor people can live quite well on food stamps; Craig Frank, who didn't think the voters should have been able to decide the vouchers issue; and Brad Daw, who sponsored legislation to allow the government to snoop into your cell phone records and bank accounts without a warrant from a judge.  (Even the Eagle Forum thought that went too far!)

They also allowed two other non-incumbent extremists to go into primaries.  Joel Wright, who is the darling of the Eagle Forum and who wants to gut an already tight county government, is in a primary with Gary Anderson.  And Mike Thompson, former state representative from Orem who was defeated by Lorie Fowlke in 2004, also made it out of the convention.