The Bennett lesson: All incumbents beware

Politico ^

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The Bennett lesson: All incumbents beware By: David Catanese May 9, 2010 07:28 AM EDT

SALT LAKE CITY — It's on. The first incumbent of the 2010 election year crashed and burned Saturday, and there's ample cause for alarm for officeholders everywhere.

There was no personal scandal, no whiff of corruption, no silver bullet here.

Republican Sen. Robert Bennett was one of the most powerful and likable members of the Senate, he diligently protected Utah’s interests from his post in GOP leadership and he funneled millions of dollars back to his state as an appropriator.

But Utah Republicans didn't care. In fact, that's exactly why they tossed him out in a humbling second ballot vote at the state party convention.

The circumstances surrounding his downfall were unique to Utah with its state convention process, yet there was an unmistakable message to incumbents on both sides of the aisle: This is no ordinary year, and the ordinary, time-honored methods of winning votes may not be enough.

For Republicans who are measuring the drapes in anticipation of reclaiming power, Bennett’s loss should be sobering. If the anti-Washington and tea party winds keep blowing this strong, some of them could be measuring their own political graves.

To one degree or another, all the national polls reflect the deep-seated unrest. The congressional job disapproval rating registered 72 percent when Gallup measured it last month. In a late April Washington Post/ABC News poll, 57 percent said they were “inclined to look around for someone else to vote for,” compared to just 32 percent who said they were inclined to re-elect their representative. Those results are slightly worse than on the eve of the 1994 election, when the same poll found 56 percent would look around and 37 percent would vote to re-elect.

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eCSMaster

LOL...you beat me to it.