Why did GOP boot Walker (in gubinatorial primary)? | Salt Lake Tribune

Why did GOP boot Walker?


Gov. Olene Walker congratulates top vote-
getter Jon Huntsman Jr. at Saturday's GOP
convention. Utah's political establishment
on Sunday was still digesting Walker's
rejection.
(Leah Hogsten/The Salt Lake Tribune)

By Thomas Burr
The Salt Lake Tribune

Mike Leavitt never experienced a day like his former lieutenant, confidant and successor did on Saturday.

Current Gov. Olene Walker was eliminated from the 2004 governor's race by Republican delegates, who instead favored former U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman Jr. and Board of Regents Chairman Nolan Karras to compete for the state's highest office. Huntsman and Karras now face a June 22 primary.

In three runs for governor, Leavitt -- though jeered at the 2000 convention -- each time emerged to the November election, unlike Walker, who took fourth place Saturday in her bid for four more years in the post -- the first incumbent Utah governor to lose at party convention since J. Bracken Lee in 1956.

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The rightists were infuriated at more money for "government schools."