Change, Change, Change
By John H. Fund, 6/25/2008 9:33:57 AM

Voters turned another House incumbent out of office yesterday, as six-term GOP Rep. Chris Cannon lost a Utah GOP primary in the most Republican Congressional seat in the nation -- the Mormon stronghold of Provo.

Challenger Jason Chaffetz, a 41-year-old former chief of staff to Gov. Jon Huntsman, credited his victory to the public's appetite for change. Voters must have been hungry: Mr. Cannon lost by a resounding 20 points, almost unprecedented for an incumbent.

No doubt anti-immigration restrictionists will credit Mr. Chaffetz's victory to public anger over Mr. Cannon's signature stand in Congress -- his support for a temporary guest worker program to address illegal immigration. But Mr. Cannon survived previous primaries when the immigration debate was much more heated. He also had worked assiduously to change his image. In his ads, he depicted himself as a tough-as-nails border enforcer. "Cannon wants to replace 'catch and release' with 'catch and deport,'" ran one commercial. His opponent Mr. Chaffetz responded that the incumbent's campaign represented "an election year conversion" and insisted that the only path to citizenship for anyone in the U.S. illegally was first to "return to their home country."

While Mr. Cannon's immigration ads clearly didn't appease his critics, he had many other problems. He lost his cool and stalked off the stage after one debate with Mr. Chaffetz and often reinforced an image of arrogance in interactions with voters. Most importantly, his opponent was able to tie him firmly to the Washington Beltway.

"It's just such a tough environment for incumbents," said Kelly Patterson, director of the Center for the Study of Elections at Brigham Young University. "President Bush had low approval ratings, Congress had low approval ratings. People are dissatisfied with the way Congress and Washington work and Representative Cannon was seen as a part of that."

Mr. Chaffetz says he will go to Washington determined to change the "name brand" of the minority Republicans in Congress. "The Republican Party is broken and I want to fix it," he told supporters last night.
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