Posted on 05/09/2010 2:54:37 AM PDT by iowamark
Utah Sen. Robert F. Bennett , who was first elected to the Senate in 1992, will not be the Republican nominee this fall after he failed to finish in the top two at the state’s GOP nominating convention on Saturday.
Bennett finished third in the second round of balloting behind attorney Mike Lee and businessman Tim Bridgewater.
The only electoral path left the for the Senator after his defeat Saturday would be a longshot write-in campaign. A spokeswoman for the Senator said Bennett has made “no commitment” about whether he would take that route.
Bennett’s loss will not endanger Republicans chances of holding the seat in November but will be celebrated as a victory by conservative activists who had painted him as a “Republican in name only” who was too willing to work with Democrats on issues like government financial bailouts and health care. On a national level it will be viewed as a clear example of just how much of an anti-incumbent and anti-establishment cycle 2010 has become.
Bennett had hoped to garner enough support Saturday to force a primary, where he could take his message to all of Utah’s Republicans rather than have his fate decided by the more conservative party activists who attend the convention.
Bennett, a close ally of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), had tried to leverage his broad support from the national GOP establishment leading up to the convention. On Saturday, he brought former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R), a fellow Mormon, to the podium before he addressed the convention. But Bennett’s appeals about seniority, experience and connections fell on mostly deaf ears on Saturday.
Bennett’s loss will also be a major victory for the anti-tax group, the Club for Growth, who had put the Senator at the top of it’s target list this primary season. Bennett became a top target of the Club in the wake of his efforts to help pass the Wall Street Bailout bill in 2008 and the group took a lead role in lobbying delegates to oust the three-term Senator leading to today’s convention. The Club spent heavily on it’s effort to lobby convention voters to dump Bennett.
“Utah Republicans made the right decision today for their state, and sent a clear message that change is finally coming to Washington,” Club for Growth President Chris Chocola said in a statement immediately following Bennett’s defeat. “The media may report this as Bob Bennett’s loss, but we see it as a victory for Utah, for the United States Senate, and for the cause of economic freedom.
Lee and Bridgewater are now headed to a June 22 runoff to determine the GOP nominee, who will be a shoo-in to win the seat in November.
In comments to reporters after it became clear that Bridgewater and Lee were headed to the primary, Bennett said he “wished them well” but he did not make an endorsement.
Immediately after it became clear that Bennett would not be on the final ballot, Lee earned a quick endorsement from Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) a conservative champion who has waded into several Republican primary battles this year with his Senate Conservatives Fund political action committee.
National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (Texas) released a statement Saturday praising Bennett’s service and reiterating that the committee will back the eventual nominee.
“This has been an open and spirited process and I want to be clear that the NRSC will wholeheartedly support the Republican candidate that primary voters in Utah ultimately choose as their nominee,” Cornyn said. “I am confident that this Senate seat remains in Republican control this November.”
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/senate/utah-sen-bob-bennett-loses.html?wprss=thefix
“”While state Republicans had expressed uneasiness with Bennett, it was the DC-based Club for Growth that helped crystallize that opposition. The Club spent more than $200,000 on a combination of television ads, direct mail pieces and phone calls designed to influence the 3,500 (or so) delegates who attended Saturday’s state convention.””
http://www.clubforgrowth.org/news/#2
“”Club for Growth PAC Statement on Defeat of Sen. Bob Bennett”
WASHINGTON – Chris Chocola, president of the Club for Growth, made the following remarks following the elimination of U.S. Senator Bob Bennett’s name from balloting at the Utah Republican state nominating convention today:
“Utah Republicans made the right decision today for their state, and sent a clear message that change is finally coming to Washington. The media may report this as Bob Bennett’s loss, but we see it as a victory for Utah, for the United States Senate, and for the cause of economic freedom.
“Our goal all along was to ensure Utah Republicans knew about Bob Bennett’s true record in the Senate, so that they could make an informed decision today. The results show that we succeeded in that effort, and I thank the delegates for taking their considered attention.
“Mike Lee and Tim Bridgewater are genuine pro-growth conservatives, and we wish both the best of luck in next round of balloting.”
###””
When you're in the minority and you promised to only stay in office for two terms, I'd say you're logic of appealing on this basis will be your undoing.
I’m here in S. Utah.
People from outside Utah should view this ouster as the other thing that it is: a shot over the bow to Orrin Hatch, a fair and timely warning. He’s good a lot of the time, but wobbly at other times, i.e. Amnesty, the DREAM Act, etc.
The people here (at least in S. Utah) are in NO mood to hear about amnesty. We are close enough to the LV economy to be getting burned. While the statewide rate of unemployment is an enviable 6% or so, here in Washington County it is much higher. We are less than 2 hours from Vegas. Myself, I live only 6 miles from the AZ border, and the new law there is making people nervous, as Utah is one of the announced destinations for illegals.
Hey, bennett—don’t let the door hit ya on the way out.
Now to send the same message to McCain, The Huckster, Romney and throw Newt in there too when they appear at the NRA confab in Charlotte this month. Disgusting. I’m sick of these people. Sometimes the NRA is braindead but I try to keep an open mind with them but it’s getting harder.
Halleluhah!!!
Which leaves us with............no one can avoid the tidal wave
We best hope this guy doesn’t burn and lay waste as he’s finding the route out of town. It is horrifying to think what his vote could do to the financial reform bill they wont just drop. And, all the rest of the power grabs slated to get voted on the rest of the year.
I could really like those four if they got out of politics and went home to spend more time with their families.
we really need to put out flyers in spanish about San Fransico and NYC as a good place for foreign invaders to live. it would be awesome, hell maybe we could even grant them passports to those cities lol.
They’ve already said they are coming here and NM.
I’ll be out of Dodge by that time, myself.
Back in the day when I lived in NE Ohio, I was an open-borders type. I didn’t see the big deal, seriously. I used to argue on the phone with one of my best friends, the rarest of things...a liberal Democrat in San Diego. He had pronounced the Greatest Day Of His Life the day the amigos had the boycott in 2006 or so. He was singing happy tunes like a canary: No more 1981 cars on the road, no more Spanish in the stores, traffic moves like a river...Gosh, he was the happiest man on the planet. He wanted the boycott to exist forever. Mind you, he is a lib in San Diego. I told him he was behaving like a racist and I didn’t like it. He pointedly told me that I was an asshole.
Then I moved to S. Utah.
And then I learned that my liberal friend from San Diego was right.
:)
There has to be term limits set on Congress. If you think about the same 100 guys working together for decades, making deals with each other, agreeing to look the other way as a favor for a buddy...who do you think they’re most loyal to? Their own power and group of Senator pals or the constituents they answer to every seven years? It’s a complete joke, not to mention guys in their 70’s running for yet another 7 year term.
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