|
  Newt Gingrich throws support behind Sen. Bob Bennett
Reported by abc4 on Thursday, 4 February 2010 (on February 4, 2010)
|
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Republican U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett is hoping Newt Gingrich can help shore up his conservative credentials as he tries to fend off challengers from within Bennett's own party this spring.
Bennett's support of a bailout of the nation's financial system has put him among several Republicans across the country who are under attack from within the party as not being conservative enough.
Gingrich was on hand at a swanky Salt Lake City hotel Wednesday to endorse Bennett as he officially launched his re-election campaign, although Bennett has been in campaign mode for at least a year.
Bennett is facing four Republican challengers - a fifth dropped out to spend time with a mentally ill daughter - and Bennett has frequently said this would his most difficult campaign to date.
Last year, he brought another conservative icon who is well-liked in Utah, Mitt Romney, to drum up support and send a message that he didn't plan to be defeated easily.
Bennett has already raised more than $2.7 million this election cycle and has about $796,000 in cash on hand. It's a figure that will be difficult for any of his four remaining competitors to come close to matching, but Utah's unique nominating system means that fundraising totals don't always determine who the party nominee is.
In Utah, party nominees are chosen by delegates at a state convention in May. Those delegates are chosen in neighborhood caucuses in March and aren't obligated to vote for any particular candidate. Only candidates who fail to garner 60 percent of delegate votes at the state convention are forced into a primary where name recognition is a significant advantage.
That means most of the campaigning largely takes place out of the public eye and in one-on-one meetings with political activists who tend to become delegates.
Bennett's campaign tried to sign up as many people as possible Wednesday to support Bennett and run for a neighborhood delegate. About 200 people attended Bennett's event where Gingrich said Bennett could help fight against President Barack Obama's agenda for health reform.
He said he did the same thing in the 1990s opposing Hilary Clinton's health proposals.
"He's very tenacious," Gingrich said. "It didn't matter how big the odds were. It didn't matter at the very beginning Bill Clinton gave a great speech and everybody applauded, it was inevitable and all those Republicans ought to roll over and play dead. ... He said 'No. We don't need to do that. Let's just take them on.' "
Despite Bennett's opposition to health care plans Obama and Democratic leaders supported, Bennett has still found himself on the receiving end of attack ads from conservative Club for Growth for his health care stances.
The general premise of the Bennett's bill, co-sponsored by Democratic Ore. Sen. Ron Wyden, is that employers would get out of the business of choosing their health insurance plans. Instead, employers would give employees the amount they had previously paid for health insurance so they could choose whatever health insurance plan they wanted.
Insurers would not be allowed to preclude people from buying insurance based on pre-existing coverage. All insurance plans would be required to meet the same standards as the coverage for federal employees.
Employers who don't provide money for health insurance would be required to make payments to the government to help subsidize those who can't afford health insurance plans on their own.
Although the Bennett-Wyden bill has gotten little traction, The Club for Growth has said it will try to unseat Bennett this year largely because of it.
It's a position that Gingrich told reporters following Bennett's event that frustrates him.
"I wish that the Club for Growth spent as much time and energy defeating liberal Democrats as they do dividing Republicans. I think that we are in a situation where we have an opportunity across this country to really have a dramatic sweep in the House and the Senate and we're going to need a lot of resources to get there," he said.
Gingrich is a former U.S. House speaker who helped lead the GOP's takeover of the House in 1994. Gingrich has said he considers himself among the top Republican prospects for the 2012 presidential election, although Bennett said he would continue to support Romney if he seeks the GOP nomination again.
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
Links: Full news story
|
|
| |
| | Recent related news |
| |
9News
2 days ago - Sports | 12:14 PM |
guardian.co.uk
2 days ago - Politics | The Cameron and Brown personality parade misses the point that voters care about issues, not... |
Huffington Post
2 days ago - Politics | It is a wonder of incredulous proportions that Speaker Pelosi declared the other day that the House... |
Huffington Post
2 days ago - Politics | The lions of Texas are on the loose. As the ancient African proverb predicts, they have found their... |
Politics Daily
2 days ago - Politics | Filed under: , , , , , , , ,
Newt Gingrich is back in style and is considering a bid for the White... |
| |
Huffington Post
3 days ago - Politics | Following the recent leak of a Department of Interior memo about preserving America\'s public lands,... |
Business Insider
4 days ago - Business | (/This post originally appeared on the /)
This post is intended to provide you with a deeper... |
Huffington Post
6 days ago - Politics | It often seems that Blue Dog Democrats, along with a handful of Senate moderates, are the only people... |
Huffington Post
1 week ago - Politics | --I don\'t give\'m hell; I just tell the truth and they think it\'s hell\". (Harry Truman, 1948).... |
Politics Daily
1 week ago - Politics | Filed under: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
**Less than six months after he took... |
| |
|
|
|
| |
Facebook
E-mail
Twitter
Mixx
StumbleUpon
FriendFeed
Tweet the News!
Select Region >
Top News RSS Feed | News for my Website | Archive | Advertise | Help | Enquiries | Bookmark this site | 
U.S. version
