Bennett, other Republicans suffering for 2008 bank bailout vote

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Some of Congress' staunchest conservatives voted two years ago to prop up the nation's banking industry. At the time, they saw a threat to American business. Now the emergency is their own political survival.

In Utah and dozens of other races around the country, challengers are hammering away at the bank bailout and deriding Republican lawmakers they claim spent billions to rescue Wall Street, not Main Street.

Three-term Sen. Bob Bennett, who won re-election handily in 2004, says he's in the fight of his life in Utah. Four-term Rep. Gresham Barrett of South Carolina was booed at a political rally last April because of his bailout vote.

Rep. John Boozman of Arkansas is facing seven opponents for the Republican nomination for Senate. All are talking about his bailout vote, and one brings a blue plastic tarp to his events to symbolize the TARP, or Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The lawmakers are grappling to explain something that didn't seem unusual for conservatives at the time.

"I called businesses and banks in Utah, and I was told unanimously by Utah businesses and banks, 'You have to vote for this or we will fail,'" Bennett said.

In Utah, Bennett faces seven challengers in his race. In 2004, he had no opponent in the primary. The conservative Club for Growth has spent more than $120,000 on television ads, mailings and a website opposing his re-election bid.

Bennett says he's trying to explain himself. "I find that if I can go through the details of the condition of the economy of the time," along with the analysis of conservative economists, "that I can usually turn people around," he said.

Even in politics, which is notorious for its mood swings, the change in perceptions about the economic rescue is striking. It is now part of the especially dark cloud hanging over many incumbents. And it shows the presence of the ultra-conservative tea party movement, which hasn't proven yet it can help candidates but has shown it can hurt some.

Though the bailout is an issue in Democratic races, it has become more damaging for Republicans, for whom government spending is more controversial. In March, the issue contributed to veteran Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's resounding defeat in the Republican gubernatorial primary in Texas, where Gov. Rick Perry dubbed her "Kay 'Bailout' Hutchison."