Utah Sen. Bob Bennett loses convention fight

Chris Cillizza
WashPost

Utah Sen. Bob Bennett lost his bid to be nominated for a fourth term Saturday, defeated at the state Republican Party convention amid a strong conservative sentiment that threatens to unseat other establishment-backed Republicans in the months to come.

Bennett, who had spent the past two decades as a respected insider in the Senate, came under fire in recent months for what some claimed were his insufficient conservative bona fides.

Bennett's critics cited his vote for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) as well as his seat on the Senate Appropriations Committee -- both symbols, conservatives said, of his lack of commitment to shrinking the size of government.

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.

(More here.)