Recently, Senator Bob Bennett spoke to the Ripon Society, a Republican group, and made some cogent comments about the Republican Party.  Bennett, who was defeated by state Republican delegates for re-election, said "the demand of absolute party purity endangers our ability to govern." Bennett should know about "absolute party purity." Bennett is no liberal, but he was too far to the left for the Utah Republican Party. That says less about Bob Bennett and more about the extremism of his own party.

Bennett went on to criticize the Republicans as devoid of ideas. He told the group:

"As I look out at the political landscape today, I find plenty of slogans on the Republican side, but not very many ideas." And, speaking from experience, he added: "If you attempt to raise ideas... you're attacked as being a wimp, insufficiently pure, and unreliable."

A few years ago I had the opportunity to be in a boat in the New York harbor. As the boat passed the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, I thought back on the many people whose first glimpse of the United States was Lady Liberty. They came from all parts of Europe, but they shared a common bond -- the desire to start a new life in a new country. The United States was only a vision for them until they came into New York harbor. It was a land of economic opportunity. It was a land with a future.

The United States offered  a more promising future to these immigrants in many other ways. It was a place where they could enjoy freedoms that were only distant concepts in their homelands. They could attend the church of their choice. They could stand on street corners and complain about the government. They could march in protests against the policies they disagreed with.

Even today, those basic rights we enjoy as American citizens are foreign to many people around the world. They cannot criticize their president. They cannot publish those criticisms in the media. They cannot assemble and organize to support their own views about government.

The Utah County Elections Office suggests that about 12 percent of the eligible electorate will turn out to vote in tomorrow's primary.  It is unlikely the state-wide figure will be much higher than that.  In the past, that would have meant that all the people who held office in Utah County would have been determined by a small fraction of all the voters in the county.  That was because the Republican primary was equivalent to the general election.
 
That has now changed.  For example, whoever wins the Utah County Commission race for the Republican nomination tomorrow will face Lane Henderson.  No, Lane is not a token candidate.  He is the former mayor of Salem and prior to that served two terms on the Salem City Council.  For many years he was the publisher of the Spanish Fork Press.  Lane is well known in south county and offers the voters a much better choice than either of the two Republicans.  Gary Anderson has not been the most proactive county commissioner and it is likely that approach would continue if he were re-elected.  Joel Wright has minimal public service experience.  He served briefly  on the Cedar Hills City Council and served only one year on the State Board of Regents.  Wright resigned from the Board for personal reasons, but did so in the wake of an investigation of which Board member had violated Board policy on interfering with a UVU presidential selection search. The investigation was closed after Wright resigned. Hmmm.  Coincidental?  Don't think so.

Bob Bennett was Too Liberal for Utah Republican Delegates?

Last month, the delegates at the Utah County Republican convention ended Senator Bob Bennett's bid for re-election.  The delegates instead chose two candidates - Mike Lee and Tim Bridgewater - who better matched the extremism of the activists in the state Republican Party.  Thanks to the Utah Republican delegates, the primary on June 22 now is between two candidates who are vying to be the most ideologically extreme in the race.  While Bob Bennett got left out because he was too liberal for the delegates.
 
What made Bennett unacceptable?
 
1. He was more conservative than extremist.  In 2008, Bennett received a 64 percent rating from the American Conservative Union.  The previous year it was 75 percent.  Conversely, he received a 15 percent in those years from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action.  That's pretty conservative for most people, but obviously not for Utah's Republican convention delegates.