Senator Bob Bennett met his political demise this week when he was booted from the Republican primary in Utah. A lot of Washington insiders are crying in their milk at the loss. And that’s reason enough for the rest of us to celebrate. Bennett has a fairly conservative record that in most years would have gotten him reelected in Utah. But 2010 is not most years. The country is suffering big-time at the hands of big-government shills, and Bennett’s vote to bail out the banks with TARP makes him a big-government shill. In other words, he abandoned his principles for politics.
I’m sure Bennett was thinking, “Why not vote for TARP? It’s going to help the banks.” And Bennett has been given a lot of money by the banks. In particular, Utah’s biggest TARP recipient, Zions Bank, and its employees have given Bennett’s campaigns nearly $40,000. And one of Bennett’s old interns is now a VP at Zions. The bank received $1.4 billion in funds from TARP. That’s just the kind of cozy establishment back-scratching that ended Bennett’s career.
All over the country, incumbents like Bennett are under siege by reformers. Mike Lee, Bennett’s possible successor, is one such reformer. Lee has spent numerous years clerking for justice Samuel Alito both on the Supreme Court and on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit Court. His knowledge of the Constitution is deep, and he aims to uphold it as senator of Utah. After Bennett was ousted, the establishment GOP (i.e., neocons) have been lining up behind Lee’s opponent in the Republican primary, Tim Bridgewater. Bridgewater is much more gung ho in regards to using America’s might to crush small, insignificant nations around the world. As you know, I prefer conservative candidates who will only seek to govern the U.S., not Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Georgia, Ukraine, or any other country. If you’re a freedom-loving conservative in Utah, Mike Lee is the man for you.
A little south of Utah, in Nevada, the same battle for the heart of the GOP is raging. But the odds are a lot higher. The GOP Senate primary will choose a candidate to oust Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate majority leader. There are 12 candidates in the GOP primary, but Sharron Angle, Sue Lowden, and Danny Tarkanian are in a three-way race for the lead. Lowden is undoubtedly the establishment candidate. Angle has been endorsed by the Tea Party Express. But Tarkanian is the candidate for conservative, freedom-loving Americans. He recognizes that Americans don’t want the U.S. military being deployed around the world to build democracies from the ground up (or lower). True conservatives see that the real need for America’s military is on the Mexican border, closing the paths of drug runners, smugglers, human traffickers, and terrorists. As Tarkanian says on his website, “Withdrawing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan will save the country over $2 trillion in spending over the next 7 years and more importantly, it will bring our service men and women home to their families, out of harm’s way. Finding a way of reducing the United States military presence overseas, while still aggressively pursuing our enemies, must be a priority for our government.” I couldn’t agree more.
