Utah's Bennett faces primary fight
By Alex Isenstadt
Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) is not entangled in scandal, he’s never shown a hint of vulnerability and there’s no Democrat on the horizon who’s poised to knock him out of his Senate seat.
Nevertheless, he could be in jeopardy in 2010.
Bennett’s problem is the Republican primary. State Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who won election to a third term in November with 70 percent of the vote, told POLITICO in an interview that he’s leaning toward challenging Bennett and may make an announcement as soon as this week. Many Utah Republican insiders say they expect Shurtleff to take the plunge — and if he does, Bennett could find himself in a tough race.
“It’s a very real challenge to Bennett,” said LaVarr Webb, a longtime state GOP strategist. “He could be in real trouble.”
And Shurtleff isn’t the only prospective Republican challenger. Former Juab County Attorney David Leavitt — the brother of former Utah governor and Bush administration Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt — and Mike Lee, a former legal counsel to Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman, have also been mentioned as possible candidates.
While Bennett has won reelection by landslide margins since first winning the seat in 1992, he’s also managed to alienate some conservatives back home on a handful of high-profile issues. In 2005, he opposed a constitutional amendment banning flag burning — an effort spearheaded by his home-state GOP colleague Sen. Orrin G. Hatch. A year later, he was a vocal supporter of then-President George W. Bush’s push for comprehensive immigration reform.
But it was Bennett’s Wall Street bailout vote last fall that served as the final straw for conservatives who argue that he’s become another big-spending Washington insider.
“More and more people are concerned ... that [congressional Republicans and Democrats] spent us into a huge hole,” said Shurtleff. “That seems to be a pretty across-the-board response with folks and with Republicans in particular.”
