Posted on 06/11/2010 4:47:27 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
- This fall, a Republican is almost guaranteed to win in Utah's Senate race. But will the pick of self-styled true conservatives win the Republican primary on June 22?
Groups like the Senate Conservatives Fund and FreedomWorks have endorsed attorney Mike Lee in the race. He's up against businessman Tim Bridgewater and the two agree on many issues. But such groups like Lee's knowledge of the Constitution and worry about Bridgewater's commitment to limited government, saying he supported subsidizing drug costs for Medicare.
Lee has an uphill climb in the primary and may be the latest candidate to underscore the limits of conservatives' national ambitions this fall. In May's nominating convention, he got 43% of the vote to Bridgewater's 57%. Convention delegates are very conservative to begin with, so the results bode ill for the lawyer who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito when Alito was a federal judge.
"You have to give the edge to Bridgewater," said Quin Monson, a political science professor at Brigham Young University. "He got the most votes in the convention."
If Lee loses, he'll join California's Chuck DeVore and Indiana's Marlin Stutzman as conservative also-rans who were felled by establishment candidates. If he wins, he'll be the Rand Paul of the West
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
Tim Bridgewater supported a Federal earmark to build a bridge in Indonesia. If he wins, he’ll be Bob Bennet II, The Sequel. Mike Lee is the only true conservative running.
He's libertarian?
In some respects. He’s the true conservative, while Bridgewater is a tax and spend establishment type.
Not sure I can add much to that. It would truly be pointless to depose Bennett only to replace him with a clone, since you might as well keep the old guy with seniority...
I just don’t care for the way libertarians are posing as “true conservatives” and attacking Republicans. This is an especially bad time to do so. Eventually, it turns out that the libertarian is the same as, or worse than, the Dem. Also, most of these emerging “true conservative” candidates have never held office. There is no record to hold them to or to indicate where they stand, how they govern.
Obama’s overreaching has brought a lot of new people into the political system.
Considering one Orrin G. Hatch, there is little reason to be hopeful about the people of UT.
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