Tea Party victory: Republican senator dropped by Utah conservatives

Washington- Utah Republicans Saturday dropped Senator Robert Bennett for the party's nomination for November elections, making him one of the first victims of the conservative Tea-Party movement.

According to media reports, Bennett, 76, who has served three terms - 18 years - in the Senate, still was popular among Utah Republican voters.

But his defeat came at the Republican state convention, giving yet another signal of the polarized political climate leading up to the November elections. Conservative Republicans objected to his working with a Democratic senator on health care issues, The Los Angeles Times reported.

In late April, a similar surge of right-wing sentiment forced Florida Governor Charlie Crist, a moderate Republican pilloried for hugging Democratic President Barack Obama, to declare as an independent for the US Senate as a political rival gained steam from the Tea Party movement.

Democrats are bracing for losses in November's congressional elections amid public dissatisfaction with the uncertain economy and Obama's health care reform.

Much of that discontent is channeled through the Tea Party movement, a nationwide grassroots organization with enough muscle to force moderate Republicans to the right on issues. The movement claims to be the legacy of the Boston Tea Party, a protest during the American Revolution against taxation without representation.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/322676,tea-party-victory-republican-senator-dropped-by-utah-conservatives.html.