On the heels of last Thursday's evidence, the Salt Lake Tribune offers up more polling data this morning to suggest that Utah's Junior Senator Bob Bennett may be toast:Unless Sen. Bob Bennett's political fortunes change dramatically in the next two weeks, he could become Utah's first incumbent U.S. senator to lose his party's nomination in seven decades.Read all about it here:
A new Salt Lake Tribune poll of Republican delegates shows Bennett running in third, behind GOP challengers Mike Lee and Tim Bridgewater.
Lee logged 37 percent support in the survey, while Bridgewater came in at 20 percent, and Bennett lagged at 16 percent.
• Poll stunner: Sen. Bennett on brink of defeatWhat about it gentle readers? Is it time to say bye-bye to Beltway Bob? Or will Bennett pull a rabbit out of his hat, with one last round of frantic pre-convention spending?
• Sen. Bob Bennett dropping big bucks before GOP conventionHere's the nutshell lowdown from the D-News on Bennett's last-minute campaign spending spree:
SALT LAKE CITY — Facing the strong possibility of elimination at the upcoming state GOP convention, Sen. Bob Bennett's campaign pulled out all the stops and spent a huge $271,000 in just the first 18 days of this month.Whew!
In comparison, that is almost as much as Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, spent in his entire two-year 2008 congressional race. Bennett's heavy spending this month also comes on top of the $428,000 that he spent in the first three months of the year (before the party caucuses) — for a total of nearly $700,000 in three and a half months this year.
"Cash is king in politics," as all political wonks well know; and thanks to the generosity of the investment, banking, insurance and nuclear waste storage industries, Beltway Bob has a pot-load of it to spread around, in the ten days remaining before the Utah GOP convention.
The question is... "Will these great wads of campaign cash make any difference at all?"
So many questions, et cetera.
Update 4/27/10 1:00 p.m.: Standard-Examiner editorial page editor Doug Gibson is on this story, like a giant Rottweiler "finding and munching a tasty bone." Check out Doug's Std-Ex blog:
• Bob Bennett is cooked and ready to lose at conventionChime in here or there, gentle readers.
And here we'd thought earlier this morning that we were once again mired in a slow news day.
25 comments:
Say, Ye ole Chap would you like to have some more TEA, This Tea party is looking to be one of the Greatest things to hit Politics in 4 decades. My Tea taste just great because after we take out Bennett and all the other incumbents then we will have taken down the republican party. Heaven forbid that the democrats will win. After all aren't they all baby killers and gays. Yea but we have all the drunks and the hot tubing crowd to put up with so. Now Now that abortion and Gay issue is really the norm now here in the slc area. I think that after we said that Pres. Clinton should be impeached for his affair, doesn't that really make us look like Hippocrates. That is OK because laws were only made for the Democrats. But doesn't that really mean we are Hippocrates? Yea but who will notice? The tea party-ers? After all they are now our party. See how cool that is. We have taken over the republicans and now we are in power of the State and once that happens we can get drunk and hot tub all day. Do you know why? Because we are the republICANs and that says I CAN. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Tea Party and Eagle Forumn followers are eating their own kind of like the Donner Party. It is time to clean house, take the party back to the common people and away from corporations, developers and real estate tycoons who have rape us and reaped unethical and immoral profits. Look at the party of "NO" and siding with Wall street and the bankers.
Secret closed door meetings, apologies after the fact that have no meaning, now is the time to react and vote with a conscience and not because they are LDS and Republician.
With 61 percent of GOP delegates viewing Bennett unfavorably, it seems impossible for him to survive the state convention.
If you think standing in a grassy field, waving flags, and throwing out honorably serving incumbents is going to make it so that corporations do not own you, lock, stock, and barrel: you are all dumber than a 1960's bus full of glassy eyed hippies.
All this misguided action does is provide fresh, inexperienced congressional meat for the corporations to play with, before the meat gets eaten.
Good one, Clown!
Good choice of an online handle too!
In the midst of a GOP culture which preaches twisted the ideological principle of "federalism," i.e., that our elected officials are our "leaders," (and not our agents or public servants), charged with making ALL of our decisions for us (no polling allowed) between elections, and that the citizens' only recourse against poorly perforning elected officials is the ballot box, you're now arguing that we shouldn't replace incumbents like Bennett at election time, (who you say has served honorably, and we the people say has betrayed our trust ) when these arrogant aristocrats have to stand at election time for re-approval?
Is THAT what you're saying, Clown?
Never mind answering. We definitely got your message.
We think we should keep Bob Bennett. He's an even better coffin model than Orrin Hatch.
Even if we can't embalm him and display him in our Coffin Showroom, we believe, in the spirit of GOP private sector enterprise, that we should at least be able to make wax casts of Senator Bennett.
If Bob Bennett finally gets sacked by the Utah GOP I will reaffiliate when they get rid of Hatch-
But - God help us when Mike Lee makes it to Washington to represent Environmental Solutions -
It's interesting that the people in the "Tea Party", at least in Utah, are the same ones who are actually the problem with the GOP - People without a shred of integrity like Wimmer, Buttars and that whole lying gang of so called Republican leaders in the legislature.
Any group that elevates a total air head like Palin to leadership positions is just one more empty political joke. And just take a look at some of the rest of the Tea Party luminaries! People like Beck, Hannity and Gingrich for example. Enough to make this old PaleoCon Republican puke in his funny convention hat!
If Bob Bennett is eliminated at the GOP convention what will he do? Will he continue to pander to the looney Tea Party voters or will he advance or advocate some sensible ideas? It is extremely disheartning to have the Republican party become so knee jerk reactionary and abandon the moderate or independeny right leaning voter. President Eisenhower and President Reagan could not pass the test now being imposed on GOP candidates.
Oz:
That's what happens when a party panders to extremists to curry votes. White supremacists and segregationists in the South, religious wingnuts who want the US government to rule by literal biblical dictate, the "black helicopter" crowd of the paranoid right, etc. well, for the past 20 years, the Republican Party, with the quiet acquiescence of its conservative, but sane, leaders [ak Bennett] has labored hard to attract that particular extremist tiger to Republican ranks.
There's more than a little wisdom in that old cliche': Be careful what you ask for. You might get it.
I don't know squat about what goes on inside the Utah Republican Party. And I don't trust polls that try to map out such uncharted territory (at least not before they've been digested and interpreted by Nate Silver). But I would like to point out that Doug Gibson has been wrong before. Didn't he predict that Health Insurance Reform ("Obamacare", as he calls it) would be defeated? Well, whatever happens, it'll be fun to watch!
Oops! I see that Nate Silver has indeed weighed in. Bottom line: "[Bennett's] candidacy is not dead on arrival, but he is an underdog to survive."
Doug
You may be right and you may be wrong about Bennett.
I still think he will pull off a 2nd place finish at the convention and then win in the primary. After all, there isn't a single statesman, or person of high integrity, that is in the race against him on the "R" side.
Surely the tin hat crowd in the GOP wouldn't sink so low as to actually elect one of these clowns - would they? Bennett is hands down the best choice in that race although a pretty poor one all things considered. Now that he has had the fear of defeat singed into his chrome dome he most likely will pay a whole lot more attention to the people of Utah than he has been doing.
I would like to see all GOP incumbents everywhere kicked out of office, but in the Bennett race it is very depressing because of the other choices. I guess I could dream of the Dems winning that one, but we all know that ain't gonna happen here in God's own backyard.
I find it amusing that the Tea Baggers think that the people they will send to Washington will somehow be more pure, and less corruptible, than the ones who were elected over the last 30 years.
Our elected representatives are just like you, and you and you: writ large.
Do you coast stop signs, when you know you should come to a full and complete?
Do you drive a few miles over the speed limit, in order to "go with the flow"?
Do you occasionally sneak a little snack into the movie theatre?
Do you occasionally commit other, tiny, meaningless offenses, because it really doesn't matter and who will know?
Work five years in Washington, Little Statesman with a Tea Bagger Button and you are just another corrupt politician; corrupt just like you, and you and you.
Give me a break.
Wow, I really have to disagree with some of the comments above (but not the one about Bennett being a coffin model!)
The public goes about its business. Only when the level of corruption and self dealing reaches a certain level, do they get fed up, and get involved.
Bennett, on the banking committee, let banks run amok. Then, when the incompetents crashed, he voted to bail them out with taxpayer money. He voted to give Mexicans in this country US citizenship. He voted to reconfirm Ben Bernanke, who has given trillions, trillions!, to corporate cronies of all stripes, and has refused public scrutiny even when the courts have ordered him to do so!
Each time, Bennett smirked that it would get him in trouble back home. Thank goodness, he was right about that.
This is why the Republicans were voted out two years ago - the self dealing. And this is why the Democrats will now be voted out too.
The public is rising up. Those who are sent to Washington will be better, they will be more moral, because they are more newly from the public. Eventually they will become coffin models of corruption if they stay too long. But for a few good years, they will be good representatives.
Thank you Tea Party members, for taking back our country as patriots always have throughout our nation's history.
If it happens, killing Bennett off in the convention will be one sweet moment in this movement.
Off topic but, The 100 mile Bike ride to raise funding for the Mayors Velodrome project was discussed in Council meeting tonight. Pureheart Patterson said that the Ogden Community Foundation is handling the funds generated from the event, he stated that it is a fund raiser, and that the corrupt foundation will bank the expected $15,000 from the event.
Was'nt Ogden Community Foundation involved with the Friends of Northern Utah Real Estate fund raiser?
Might one suspect that they are ramping up for the next years Mayoral race?
What happened on the searchlight veto override?
very skeptical,
Thanks for the report. Isn't it convenient that the mayor has a nonprofit foundation conveniently under his control, allowing him to spend money without oversight from the city council or the public.
Let's see... $15,000 would be about 1/1000 of the money they'll need for the Velodrome. But, it's a start!
I'm not aware of any direct connection between OCF and FNURE or Envision Ogden, although some of the same individuals might be involved.
What happened with the searchlight ordinance?
We must recognize that if the mayor is able to raise $15,000 (I say "if" because I suspect he is exaggerating) then that shows there is a level of community support for the velodrome idea.
The amount of that community support can even be precisely quantified, as follows:
"Not much."
Mayor, why allow your lack of community support to be quantified in this way? Cancel the bike ride, so that you can continue to lie about your support.
You know your lies are always far, far more flattering to you than reality.
Why change the methods that have worked so well for you?
Searchlight ordinance was overridden by the council. 7 for 0 against.
No more continous searchlights in Ogden, Yahoo!
Comment moved to new article
Danny
So why can't the little Wizard have his bike ride and lie as well? It seems a bit unreasonable to expect him to change his MO at this point in the game. There isn't much that he is good at, except lying and maybe biking, so why can't he multi-task with the the two things he is proficient in?
And Dan, the answer is pretty obvious, all he has to do is have 999 more bike rides with PureHeart and his Godfreyite posse and the damn thing will be paid for. Either that or just make up some whoppers about secret investors who will cover the back side if the tax payers pony up for the tab in front.
The Wizard does have his wizardry to fall back on, so why don't you just sit back and have a little faith in our dear leader like I do?
Oz,
I can see this "isn't your first rodeo" with Godfrey, now is it?
Danny
I ainta never been to no rodeo's with the Wizard. I like horses, but I'm not particularly fond of horses asses.
I have been observing Godfrey and his minions for six or seven years now and I gotta tell ya I have never in my 40+ years of political observing seen a more arrogant, incompetent and dishonest politician in all that time.
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