Not conservative enough

WHAT'S not to like about Senator Robert Bennett? The grandson of a Mormon leader and son of a senator, he is as much a part of Utah as the Great Salt Lake. His conservative Republican credentials would have seemed impeccable not long ago—he opposes abortion, likes a flat tax and voted against Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. There were questions about his role in the Watergate scandal, but that was long ago, and Mr Bennett, 76, has spent three terms in the Senate without notable sleaze or incompetence. Other senators like him. So do politicians in Utah. Mitt Romney, still a star there, endorsed him for a fourth term.

And yet, in this unusual year, this was not enough for Utah's Republicans. At their convention on May 8th they ejected Mr Bennett unceremoniously from participating in the Republican primary on June 22nd. Many of the 3,452 delegates, riled up by tea-party fervour, found his conservatism wanting and chose instead two relative unknowns, Tim Bridgewater, a businessman, and Mike Lee, a lawyer, to run against each other, on the assumption that they will both be ideologically pure. This makes Mr Bennett the first incumbent senator from Utah in seven decades to lose his party's nomination. Suddenly, incumbents are trembling everywhere.

How did Utah's Republicans decide that Mr Bennett had strayed from the true path? He voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Programme (TARP), part of the legislation (passed by the Bush administration) that was meant to prevent an economic depression and which the tea-party movement now calls “bail-outs”. Some delegates were heckling Mr Bennett with shouts of “TARP, TARP, TARP”.

Others did not like Mr Bennett's suspicious record of reaching across the aisle; he worked with a Democrat to draft an alternative plan to reform health care. Still others scorned his occasional success in winning federal favours for Utah, seeing this as proof that he is part of an earmark culture.

Whether Mr Bennett is a bellwether for other incumbents up for re-election remains to be seen. Utah's nomination process is unusual in that relatively few party faithful, through a caucus system, have the power to pre-select candidates for the primaries, knowing that Republicans invariably win the general election. Had Mr Bennett faced all registered Republicans, he might have survived. Tea-party candidates in states with traditional primaries have not done well so far. But the movement now has high hopes for primaries such as Kentucky's on May 18th, where Rand Paul, son of Ron, a libertarian presidential candidate, wants to stage another upset.

What seems certain is that this is an angry year. “The political atmosphere obviously has been toxic and it's very clear that some of the votes that I have cast have added to the toxic environment,” Mr Bennett said, acknowledging his defeat with moist eyes. But he added that he would not have changed his votes even if he had known that they would cost him his job. That attitude used to be the mark of not just an honourable but an electable senator.