This would not qualify as a surprise, nor was there a palatable alternative for Washington Republicans. That said, less than 48 hours after his unceremonious dismissal by state GOPers, Bob Bennett learned that there will not be a lifeline available to him from the NRSC, should he pursue a write-in bid to save his job. The head of the NRSC, Texas Senator John Cornyn, made this explicitly clear over the weekend:
"This has been an open and spirited process and I want to be clear that the NRSC will wholeheartedly support the Republican candidate that primary voters in Utah ultimately choose as their nominee. I am confident that this Senate seat remains in Republican control this November."
There were various rumors over the weekend that Bennett, who could not even survive the second round of Utah's nominating convention, would tap his substantial reservoir of personal wealth and seek the only avenue available to him at this point: a write-in candidacy for the special election.
He would not need to dig terribly deep, as his cash-on-hand as of April 18th (just shy of $900K) was more than his three potential suitors (Republicans Mike Lee and Tim Bridgewater, as well as Democrat Sam Granato) have raised combined.
There is some precedent for successful write-in candidacies for the U.S. Congress. Strom Thurmond won a Senate seat in South Carolina as a write-in candidate in 1954. More recently, in 1982, California Congressman Ron Packard got his vengeance for a narrow primary loss by successfully winning the seat in San Diego County with 37% as a write-in.
The NRSC's move was not unexpected, of course. The anti-insider sentiment that vanquished Bennett in the primary would have morphed into a full-fledged revolt if Washington Republicans essentially overruled the convention by throwing their vocal and financial support to the defeated incumbent.
However, the machinations of the NRSC over the weekend stood in pretty stark contrast to Connecticut in 2006, where "official" Democrat-dom's discomfort about the Lamont-Lieberman outcome was palpable. From the looks of things, it appears as if Bennett will not even be able to expect or enjoy benign neutrality, which seemed to be the order of the day four years ago.