Utah County Republicans -- "Those rules weren't meant for us? We're the true political party."

Quelle Surprise! The Republican party is held to a different "completely ignore the rules" standard in the Utah County Freedom Festival. Does this surprise anyone? Isn't the Utah County Freedom Festival about conservative talk show (Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck) hosts and the Republican party -- the Utah County Democrats should be grateful they were even allowed to have a parade entry!

Seriously, the Freedom Festival sent rules to the Utah County Democratic Party informing them that they could not let any campaigning at all occur on the parade route -- no campaign stickers, no candidates campaigning on the parade route, no campaign T-shirts, or campaign paraphernalia of any kind. According to the Tribune report and the Utah County Dem chairman, this was followed by the UCDemocratic Party. The Utah County Republican Party apparently got a different memo

Republicans were allowed to identify their candidates, plaster their parade
float with political messages, and have one candidate actually campaign as he
walked the parade route.

In response to these allegation the Freedom Festival organizers said the committee would review the rules and tighten up on some of the parade regulations. However, they also said that Chairman Davis was "making a mountain out of a mole hill." Really, your right -- I doubt this would have gotten it's segment own the Sean Hannity show if the situation was reversed.

The Utah County Republican chairman had the best response to these allegations:

Taylor Oldroyd, Davis’ Republican counterpart, said it was the Democrats who broke rules by having a float that wasn’t self-propelled, as required by the rules, and having someone follow the Republican float to harass them.

“They can’t win at the ballot box, and they can’t win on issues, so this is what they do,” Oldroyd said.

Way to go Mr. Oldroyd! You ignored the parade rules, likely with the Freedom Festival organizers duplicity, and once caught you found a much more egregious error by your rival -- not having a self-propelled float. Quick, someone call the Federal Election Commission!

Now, as icing on the cake, you may be asking who was the candidate that walked the parade route? The walking candidate was none other than Mike "lobbyist's rules don't apply to me because I'm the one true-conservative constitutional expert" Lee. However, we should excuse Mr. Lee because as non-douche bag UT County GOP chairman Taylor Oldroid said:

Lee walked with the float, but he only went to greet family members when he
was told that it was a violation by an unidentified member of the
Democratic party

Apparently, Mike Lee is only responsible for following rules when someone tells him he is breaking one. Mike, when elected, here is a list of a few rules you shouldn't break, taking bribes, when lobbying, not registering as a lobbyist (oops), and I wonder how your tax returns look? (Commenters should feel free to add to this list)