In a remarkable turn of events, Utah Republicans have denied incumbent Senator Bob Bennett a spot on the 2010 ballot. Even Mitt Romney couldn’t save him.
Senator Robert F. Bennett, an 18-year veteran Republican who had been seeking a fourth term this fall, was stripped of his party’s nomination on Saturday at the state convention, becoming one of the first Congressional victims of the surging ferment of discontent from the Tea Party-infused Republican right.
Mr. Bennett, 76, was outmatched in delegate votes by two relative newcomers despite an enthusiastic endorsement and convention speech from Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and local Utah hero, and a political pedigree of deep Mormon roots and public service.
Given that it’s Utah we’re talking about, it doesn’t seem likely that this development represents a huge pickup opportunity for the Democrats. It’s also conceivable (though unlikely) that Bennett will wage a write-in campaign to keep his seat; if he were to do so, one imagines that the Democrat’s chances would improve. (Never mind that last bit – apparently he can’t run as an independent, though he could run as a write-in in the GOP primary.)
I was watching an interview with a Utah constituent saying that that they will be voting Bennet out because he supported TARP. I was stunned by his confidence in saying so, as if he was sure it would happen. This constituent went on to say that it was wrong, in a free market society, to bail out a company that, through it’s own actions, destroyed itself. I am glad to hear that this mentality isn’t being directed only at Democrats. I was against TARP also, so I am thrilled that the people pulled together to make this happen, especially on the Republican side. I am of the thinking that it’s time for new and fresh faces in our government. I still want Democratic majorities, and a Dem president, I just want the corporation and their special interests out of Washington.
Senatorial skills improve with, well, seniority. Bennett’s knowledge will be gone. So will his campaign coffers.
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p>Instead of Bennett cruising to re-election and the GOP using Utah Republicans as an ATM, now two candidates will be working hard raising money from GOPers in UT. For local Democratic candidates in Utah, this is terrible, because the local GOP will be working it 100%. For non-UT Democratic candidates, this is great, because it means that the national party won’t have Utah’s backing for races elsewhere.
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p>Simplistic, to be sure, but I think that impact is real.
for at least a couple of longer-term reasons.
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p>First, the Republicans will be replacing an old Senator with a much younger person who will be able to hold the seat for far longer than Bennett could have. It makes sense to do this in a good Republican year, because an open seat, even in Utah, could potentially be vulnerable if the political winds were going the other way. It won’t be vulnerable this year.
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p>Second, Bennett was very conservative, but from what I hear either of the two potential replacements are even more conservative. A lot of this has to do with tone more than anything else — Bennett followed the Republican line most of the time, but he wasn’t a partisan bomb-thrower. The next Senator from Utah will likely be yet another step further down the road of extremely bitter partisan rhetoric in the Senate. I’m not sure that helps anyone.
This election cycle features John McCain as he tries to moult out of his mavericky skin to prove that a partisan, fire-breathing lizard lies beneath — one who won’t cooperate with Democrats no matter what.
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p>We shouldn’t be too worried about the pace at which Republican Senators move from partisan to rather partisan to hyper-partisan to insanely partisan. They are all undergoing that metamorphosis. And like ripening fruit releasing ethylene, each is an encouragement to the others.
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p>Doubtful. Any Republican victory will come at the hands of the Republicans who dismissed Bennett so handily… and will turn on their candidate at the slightest sign of moderation. So it’s either a Democratic victory or a short term Republican victory. Best case scenario for the GOP in Utah: they repeatedly vote in and out an increasingly more strident and doctrinaire series of Senators… as you say so yourself later in your comment…
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p>But the Bennett has been a good conservative, as you say so yourself, and so no need to open the seat. Bennett’s only sin was the appearance of moderation.
about Bennett, but I think there is at least some positives to rhetorical moderation, if nothing else. And while it is not a perfect analogy (because Bennett is more of a down-the-line conservative), it’s somewhat similar to the Senate situation in South Carolina. Their two Senators are Lindsay Graham and Jim DeMint. Both are conservative, but I’d much rather have more Grahams in solid Republican states like South Carolina than Jim DeMints.
Not until Utah gains another 1,00,000-2,000,000 people in the Salt Lake City area — or creates it’s own “Boulder CO” city — could Utah have a chance of going blue. We’re talking, more conservative than Ben Nelson. We’re talking extremely frustrating cover for conservatives by creating 42GOP+1Dem bi-partisan conservative.
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p>Hatch doesn’t have much time left. Let Utah have two rookie senators. Fine by me.
Strange things can happen in open seat races. Utah certainly doesn’t seem ready to elect a statewide Democrat, but things can change quickly. In fact, Utah had a fairly progressive state-wide official as late as 2000 (state AG Jan Graham). The situation in a good Democratic year is analogous to the special election in Massachusetts — many didn’t think Massachusetts could elect a Republican for U.S. Senate, but here we are with Scott Brown.
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p>So with open seats, you never know. In fact, the Republicans have been fairly savvy at clearing out old Republicans this year in fairly marginal or GOP-leaning seats. I wish the Democrats encouraged more such retirements in 2008, because now we’re faced with much tougher open seat holds in those seats in a bad Democratic year.
I would agree with you and disagree with others that this is somehow good for democrats or for the country. In the short term it might be good because it devotes resources away from other GOP pick-up opportunities, it might lead to other targets (McCain) being tea-partied forcing the party to the more unelectable environs of the far right as opposed to the center right. That said in the long run it creates a more partisan Senate, a more polarized country, less cooperation and more rhetorical bomb throwing.
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p>I would disagree with you paul though that this might create a Scott Brown for the Dems. The Dems have no leader that has emerged so far to challenge these candidates, Utah does not have a substantial independent population and is fairly conservative, and this seat is not an isolated one like that one. Brown was helped by GOPers across the country giving lots of money to take a prime target, here we have many other important races to play defense on, and a few better offensive moves as well than this seat. Had this happened in 08 we coulda been happy, but this is not our year.
… an emergent leader either though. (He still isn’t really – I see him as floundering in his job so far.) He was a nobody who ran a great campaign against someone who wasn’t convinced he was a threat. In this way the converse is at least possible in Utah.
The other advantage though, besides Coakley’s incompetence, was that this was a one time race that was able to hold the entire nation’s attention and that the entire arm of the GOP and the Tea Party could focus on, it also relied on the short term argument that Brown could kill health care to galvanize a broad swath of ideological adversaries within the right (Ron Paul acolytes, libertarians, evangelicals, abortion opponents, Tea Partiers, Country Club Republicans) into a short lived coalition to embarrass the President, kill healthcare, and dance on Ted Kennedy’s grave.
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p>In this case Dems will be running a national effort instead of a special election, will have to devote most of their resources to defending several seats, and the few pick up opportunities are in blue and swing states, not solid red states like Utah that have voted Democratic for President once in the last 50 years and have not sent a Democrat to the Senate since the seventies. Also no prominent Democrat has come forward.
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p>I would like to see that happen, but I think there are better races. We really shouldn’t be celebrating, Bennett was probably the best conservative we could get coming out of Utah and was a key sponsor of a health care bill superior to Obama’s. We have lost one of the few conservative voices willing to work on universal health care. That should not be celebrated.
Sure, he voted for TARP and he wasn’t on talk shows sniping at Dems. That much is true. Frankly, I expect his replacement to either (a) be ignored, or (b) only be covered if he amps up the guano-crazy rhetoric. If it’s the latter, you know, I’m not really sure how it plays. At what point does America just go “that dude is crazy!”?
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p>So, given that Bennett is 76 and likely had one term left and that’s it, if this sucks some money out of the national RNC/RNSC/RNCC coffers because Utahns are spending it in-state on a race that either one GOP guy will get or the other, I’ll take the short-term win.
Jeesh.
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p>The GOP is flailing in disarray. We have enacted the largest health care reform legislation in several generations. We are in the process of doing the same for financial reform. The economy is improving. The Democrats seem to have finally figured out that most of the country supports the position of the President and the Democratic party on most issues, and that the only goal of the GOP is, therefore, to bring down the President.
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p>I think this is very much our year. The GOP is digging deeper and deeper into their increasingly extreme rightwing “base” — and becoming more and more marginalized as they do.
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p>Sarah Palin is doing a fabulous job of fragmenting whatever momentum the Tea Party had at the national level. Scott Brown is demonstrating to every “independent” who voted for him what a disastrously stupid vote that was — even to the point of enthusiastically signing on to the bizarrely paranoid dementia of Joe Lieberman.
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p>Screw Utah. I think we’re doing just fine.
2008 was great not only because we won a solid electoral mandate and Obama carried a few Senators over in his coattails but because we had an unprecedented number of GOP retirements, open seats, and GOP held seats up for grabs. This year the GOP has the upper hand since we have more seats to defend this time around. A few once safe seats are now leaning GOP in DE, PA, IL, and CA. NV, SD, AR, and IN are goners. Pick ups in NH,NC, and LA are now out of reach. The only solid pick up is OH. Blumenthal is not learning from Coakley in CT according to the New York Times once again putting that seat in jeopardy.
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p>In the house nearly every Dem retirement is going to go GOP, with Obey and Stupak and soon Skelton joining the fray.
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p>I am not saying these facts will be true in November, and I appreciate your optimism in rallying us to this difficult election. But you seem blindly optimistic.
Yes, we should be realistic about how tough November will be, because Democrats are surely facing some headwinds. My point about having a chance in a Utah open seat was not meant to suggest that we should contest it this year (we won’t), but rather that a likely Bennett retirement in six years’ time could have opened up a seat in a better Democratic year. With a younger Senator in that seat, it probably won’t be open next cycle.
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p>Also, I do think you somewhat over-correct for BrooklineTom’s optimism by going too much in the pessimistic direction. I would not characterize PA, IL, and CA as leaning GOP, IN is not a lost cause, and we still have a decent shot at NH. The Times article on Blumenthal was pretty weak — the negative headline promised much more than it delivered, since there was very little evidence in it that he is actually another Coakley. In fact, he’s been campaigning very hard and quite well. In short, we’ll take our lumps in 2010, but it will be a bit better than the conventional wisdom suggests.
if Halter beats Lincoln in the primary…
I would agree that AR comes into play if Halter beats Lincoln. Living in IL I can tell you it does not look good for Alexi, but a friend of mine is a campaign worker for him and they are banking on the President and possibly the issue of immigration to deliver key constituencies to him. If he can carry Chicago and a few suburbs than he might have a shot. PA looks like Toomey country according to the polls I saw through 538. It seems that either Democrat would start the campaign trailing Toomey, though again I suspect cleaning the slate and getting Sestak to be nominated and then introducing him to voters as a reasonable Democrat while redefining Toomey as an insane Republican, that seat might come into play. Also Halter is infinitely better than Lincoln.
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p>AR is a bizarre state in that it is economically populist/liberal while socially conservative. Halter fits that mold, he is still pro-life and more conservative on gay rights just like Lincoln, but he is not a big business shill like Lincoln or his Republican opposition. If he can beat her it goes back to being a toss-up IMO. If she remains its a lost cause, and polls so far show her with a slight, though not insurmountable lead.
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p>A lot of it depends on primary results, NH could get competitive if the AG loses her primary to the tea party candidate. If she remains the nominee I think she beats Hodes. If she loses though, I think a blue dog like Hodes would beat a tea party candidate in the granite state. Similarly, if Rand Paul wins in KY that race could open up to the Dems who have two good candidates running. Ironically those Dems would be to the right of Paul on national security, immigration, and social issues and could pull off an upset. It will also be interesting to see the Tea Party commit fratricide in that campaign as the libertarian v socially conservative aspects of that movement beat each other up.
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p>CA is only lean GOP if Tom Campbell wins the GOP nomination. Having checked the polls again it looks like he is dropping to third place behind Carly and DeVore.
Everything is wonderful in blueland. It was only a bad dream.
We love you too!
…Peter Carroon, mayor of Salt Lake City. He’s running for governor.
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p>Our best shot would be for Rocky Anderson to un-retire. Aside from him and Jim Matheson (who has an easy primary and tough general to keep his Congressional seat), I’m not sure who else is on this very thin bench.
The distinction is important because the County is much larger (over 1 million people verses under 200,000) and more conservative than the City is.
Again this only helps the Dems if there is a credible Democrat running, I don’t see any. So we can skip this race.
I want Anderson to run. I really want him to run, but he didn’t exactly exit office gracefully.