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Show Ear-To-Qround Method Wrong At Demo Confab i That country editors have never nev-er made particularly good political polit-ical prophets doesn't mean that they can't enjoy a good party convention. You take last week, I misfired on every one of the six Democratic candidates for Governor and completely lost my own man' to boot. Be that as it may, the Democrats held a state convention that turned out to be a clam-bake I'll long remember. re-member. I went out of here as an innocent, in-nocent, but not wholly impartial, observer with the Roosevelt delegation del-egation to the State Democratic Convention. They were to help pick a Governor and I was to watch 'em. But things happened so fast that the order of things became confused and I lost my delegation right off the bat they just wouldn't let me watcn 'em, let alone tell 'cm how to vote. But there wasn't a one of 'em who wasn't willing to bet me who the winners would be. Be that as it may, Governor Maw and John Boyden took the convention the hard way; the Governor by shaking hands with every living soul who' crossed the threshold of the convention hall, and John Boyden by several sever-al night sessions of horse-trading. To get an' over-all picture of the Democratic convention a man must have been alert to every happening. Editors usually get their views by keeping an ear to the ground, but at this convention con-vention I got mine stepped on. Then I tried the upright, ears to the wind method, which is al- right if you can stand the wind. Delegates or friends of a particular particu-lar candidate were always on hand to extol the virtues of that candidate into your tired ears virtues that the candidate had already written you about before be-fore you ever attended the convention. con-vention. There were old Republicans who had turned Democrat and there were old Democrats who had turned Republican rubbing elbows at the. convention, but none of the now Republicans were wearing delegate or Maw ribbons. Take Lou Bryan, I've known Lou for fifteen years, and always remembered him as a good Republican. Well. Lou walked out o the convention hall wearing a delegate's ribbon. "Lou," I said, "the last time I saw you, you were running- for city commissioner on the Republican Repub-lican ticket, how come?" "S-h-h-," says Lou, "the Democrats have been better to mc." Well, Lou's honest with his politics at least, and if he can't mak it on one ticket he tries 'er on the other side. It was confusing, there's no question about it. Here my delegation dele-gation was sitting in the hall under un-der the Duchesne County sign, leaving me to roam around with my ear to the ground. One man who might have helped me in making something like a worthwhile worth-while prediction turned me down cold when I got identities mixed up. The fellow was Alf Gunn, who used to beDcputy U. S. Marshal. Alf's hair is pretty white now, but he's still " an active campaigner cam-paigner and the strongest Democrat Demo-crat you ever saw, I remembered remember-ed some of his political activities so I asked him if he was still the president of the "Jackass Democrats." Says Alf. "Those were the 'Sagebrush Democrats,' and I left the presidency of that organization eight years ago." The convention hall was one big noise. The hearing qualities of the building are poor to' begin with, the speakers shouted into the loud speaker 'mike' like they were talking to an old time convention that always met without with-out the aid of a public address system. I managed to pick up tlje fact from everyone of the speakers that everyone of the candidates knew all of the peoples' peo-ples' problems was willing- to help all of the people solve all of their problems was kind was just, and would give us good government. It's just too bad we can't have all six of those fellows who were after the governorship, in office at the same time think of the good government we'd have. We' have a problem solved every hour. None of the rest of the convention con-vention made sense, and even though I favor a single primary election, I hope we never do away with some sort of conven-tion'form, conven-tion'form, if it's only to hold 'em for people who like family reunions re-unions and old home weeks. My delegates. Gordon Harm-ston, Harm-ston, Lynn Orser and Ren Johnson, John-son, were a little disappointed when the candidates stopped shaking hands after the balloting; ballot-ing; but they shouldn't kick, they helped place the Number 2 man on the ticket. Anyway, they told me they voted for John Boyden. |