Governor Herbert is Inept

Yesterday, Curtis over at Blue in Red Zion asked "Is Governor Herbert Inept or Corrupt?"

I'm going to side with inept.

There were the voting machines he selected when he was Lt Governor and in charge of elections. You know, the ones that the state has to pay Diebold $1.3 Million+ for reprogramming/tech support every time we pull them out of the closet for an election, not to mention the extra training for poll workers. And the extra poll workers.. The ones that a Central Utah County Clerk lost his job over for showing just how easy it is to hack the computer?

And then there was the extended family members (who had previously registered in other parts of the state) of a candidate for County Sheriff in Dagget County that all registered to vote at the same residence. And that residence was a gas station. And the Dagget County Attorney forwarded the complaint to then-LG Herbert's office for further investigation, where it died. Because a dozen people can live in a gas station.

And then there was the "new" web site for looking at financial reporting documents. The one that was twice as complicated as the old one, and didn't work with most web browsers. It was easier to take a UTA Bus with two transfers from my house to the State Capitol Building to get the info than it was to get it online. A system that was easy to fix for LG Bell.

Then, we have Herbert's reaction to Corroon's Education plan. His first reaction was to point out that Peter and Amy Corroon chose to send their kids to private school, totally missing the fact that Gary Herbert supports giving people like the Corroons taxpayer money to send their kids to private school. After this was pointed out (and was accused of playing the religion card), Herbert actually played the religion card by saying that Corroon wanted to take away LDS Seminary. No constructive comments on the merits of the actual plan have come from the Herbert campaign yet. And yet he's making "focusing on the issues" part of his campaign platform.

Then, there is the fact that on three different occasions major campaign donors, right around the time they made their large campaign donations, had private meetings in the Governor's office. And all three times said donors had major business coming before the state. Even though it may not be illegal, it doesn't mean it's right (legally, I can run down State Street in a Speedo, but it definitely isn't right).

But, his reaction to this issue smacks of ineptness. In the press conference, Herbert admitted to not knowing any of these major deals were going on. Including the biggest road project in the history of the state.

So, if Governor Herbert is that out of touch with what's going on in the state, who is running the show?

from Curtis's post:

By being utterly unaware of how his state is handling the largest public works project in history, it shows that Herbert is asleep at the wheel, with no concept of how important the project is to the people of the state of Utah.

Furthermore, if he can’t see how such large donations might look bad around election time, he is showing an astounding amount of stupidity. Finally, if he can’t communicate these facts to his own campaign staff of perhaps 30 or 40, why would we want him running our state?

-Bob