U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett will run for a third, six-year term in 2004, formally breaking a campaign promise he made in 1992 to only serve two terms.
Bennett, R-Utah, broke the news Tuesday at his annual lunch with local reporters and editors during a discussion on raising the retirement age of Social Security recipients. He said he plans, at age 71, to ask Utahns to keep him in his job for six more years.
Bennett, who turns 68 on Sept. 18, said during his 1998 re-election that if his health was good and he believed he could still contribute, he would consider running again in 2004. But until Tuesday he had not said he would be a candidate again.
"This is not a formal announcement," Bennett said following the lunch. "But I'm leaning strongly toward running again. I'm fund raising like that. I'll look at my health, both physical and political, before (announcing) a final decision. Running again is my current mind-set," and something would have to happen to change that course, he said.
If re-elected in 2004, Bennett would be 77 when he left office at the end of 2010. With some U.S. senators in their 80s and Sen. Strom Thurman, R-S.C., at 98, Bennett wouldn't necessarily be the eldest among the nation's 100 senators.
At age 77, "I would be within one year of my father when he retired from the Senate," Bennett said. Bennett is the son of the late U.S. Sen. Wallace F. Bennett, who held the Utah seat in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s.
Utah has a term limit law, but it doesn't apply to its federally elected officials following a U.S. Supreme Court decision stating that only Congress can set term limits for its own members.
In 1992, when Bennett made his original, self-limiting pledge, term limits were an issue. He was among a number of well-qualified and well-funded Republicans seeking the open seat of Sen. Jake Garn, R-Utah, who was retiring after 18 years in office.
Bennett, a millionaire who spent more than $2 million of his own money on his campaign, barely survived the state convention and then nipped Geneva Steel boss Joe Cannon in the Republican primary. He coasted to victory against Rep. Wayne Owens, D-Utah, and easily won re-election in 1998 against Democrat Scott Leckman.
Talking Tuesday about other candidates and elections, Bennett noted:
Three-term GOP Gov. Mike Leavitt probably won't run again in 2004. Leavitt "has not shared" his thoughts on his political future with him, Bennett said. But he speculated Leavitt won't go for a record fourth term. Leavitt has made no public statements about his future political plans, but three or four Republicans are already looking at the race.
Salt Lake Organizing Committee President Mitt Romney, who ran a credible race against Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., in 1994, "would be at the front of the line" of GOP candidates for any major race in Utah. But Bennett said he believes Romney's political future lies in Massachusetts, where he has lived much of his adult life and has established a political base.
Romney has said he won't return to private business after the Olympics next March but will look for "service in the public sector." That could be running for office again — either here or in Massachusetts — or could be with some kind of nonprofit entity, he said.
Romney could only win the GOP nomination for a major Utah contest, however, if he stayed in Utah and immersed himself in local, grassroots Republican politics, Bennett said.
Bennett said local polls in 1974 showed that Romney's late father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney, was leading in a race for the seat from which Wallace Bennett was retiring. Bennett, then running a Washington, D.C., public relations and lobbying firm, met with George Romney and offered to come to Utah and test the political waters for him.
After a week of study in Utah, Bennett concluded that George Romney could win the GOP nomination and the election, but he had to move to Utah immediately and work hard. Ten days after Bennett met with Romney, the former GOP presidential candidate announced he would not seek a Senate seat from Utah, Bennett said.
Republican state convention delegates last Saturday made a "bad" move when they voted to close GOP primaries starting in 2002. Bennett said Utah voters have a history of treasuring their "independent" political status, even if they almost always vote for Republicans or for Democrats. Bennett fears voters could "take it out" on the state Republican Party and its candidates if they are denied access to voting in the Republican primary.
E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com