A Conservative Goes Down In Utah

It looks like the Tea Partiers have their first scalp, and it belongs to a rock-ribbed Conservative from Utah-- Senator Bob Bennett. Bennett lost out in the Utah Republican Party nominating convention, so he'll go home after 18 years in the Senate. Republicans are expected to retain his seat.

A couple of things are worth mentioning.

There is a great deal of "anti-incumbency" feeling out there, and Bennett got swept up in some of it. Clearly, his vote for TARP didn't do him any favors with the many of the Tea Partiers, but you all know how I feel about TARP--and how little respect I have for Republicans who voted against it.

The media are of course eating this up, pointing to it as some kind of a Stalinist purge in the Republican Party being undertaken by the Tea Partiers. I wonder what they'll say if Blanche Lincoln is unhorsed from the left in Arkansas?

But all in all, I don't like this. Bob Bennett was a good Senator and he was a good Party man. Utah will have to send a very quality person forward in order not to have made a terrible mistake here.