Can U.S. Sens. Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch get more conservative?

If it's possible, you'll see it over the next two years.

Bennett already has two bona fide challengers within his own party next year. Hatch, who says he will run again in 2012 if his good health holds up, may well face GOP challengers then, as well.

As the Republican Party in other states looks now to widen its tent, for some reason Utah, and maybe the Deep South, as well, are turning even more inward, more conservative. With moderate GOP Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. leaving for China and Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert moving up to the top seat and facing election next year, it is clear that leading Republican incumbents are worrying about their prospects in the May 2010 state Republican Convention.

There about 3,500 delegates — who historically are more conservative than the Utah GOP rank-and-file — will vote on Republican hopefuls. If any candidate can get 60 percent of the vote in convention, he's the automatic nominee for that office. If not, then the top two delegate-vote-getters face off in a late June closed GOP primary, where only registered Republicans can cast a ballot.

Considering that Utahns have not elected a Democrat to the governorship since 1980 and haven't elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1970, the Republican nominees for those offices are good bets to win.

It used to be that GOP major office incumbents were pretty safe within their own party. With the exception of Merrill Cook in 2000, no GOP incumbent had been unseated by another Republican for years in Utah. And Cook, a quixotic politician who had left, then rejoined, GOP ranks, was a unique case.

But new U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, changed that thinking last year. Chaffetz almost unseated then-Rep. Chris Cannon in the 3rd Congressional District in the 2008 GOP Convention. He finished the task in the closed June primary, sending the six-term congressman packing.

And that shock wave is now reverberating throughout Utah Republican politics. If Cannon can be defeated, who could be next?

Clearly, Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and former 2nd Congressional GOP candidate Tim Bridgewater think Bennett is vulnerable. Like Chaffetz before them, they will challenge an 18-year incumbent next year. And, also like Chaffetz, they will challenge from the right of their party.

Many thought it would be impossible to beat Cannon from the right. But Chaffetz did it. Now Bennett is moving to the right as fast as his 6-foot-8 frame will take him. Expect Hatch to be moving there, too.

Bennett is now running a TV endorsement ad where Mitt Romney says three times that Bennett is a dependable conservative. And this is a year before the 2010 GOP Convention. Both Bennett and Hatch, who voted for Federal Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor in previous confirmation hearings, are making noises that she is unqualified to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, where she would be Democratic President Barack Obama's first pick.

More conservative tests for Bennett and Hatch will come. And as Romney attempted last year in his first run for U.S. president (more runs will likely come), Bennett and Hatch are seeing the wisdom of moving more and more to the right.

While there were once times when Bennett and Hatch felt free politically to take more middle-of-the-road directions, watch for their campaign buses to take only right turns.

Deseret News political editor Bob Bernick Jr. may be reached by e-mail at bbjr@desnews.com.