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Utah Senator Bob Bennett is eliminated in the primary by tea-party backed candidates. Florida governor Charlie Crist, facing certain defeat at the hands of tea-party candidate Marco Rubio, bails out of the primary to run as an independent. Arizona Senator John McCain is in a tough primary fight against a tea-party favorite. What's the message?

First, voters are serious about booting out incumbents. Bennett, Crist, and McCain are all part of the political establishment. Many people, myself included, don't see anything to be gained by electing the same old suits over and over. After all, they're the ones who got us into this mess. Why should we expect them to get us out of it.

Second, the tea-party movement has clout. This is, however, a two-edged sword. Case in point: in Nevada a tea-party candidate is running a third-party race against both the incumbent, Harry Reid (boo, hiss...), and the Republican challenger. That could split the vote and let Reid slither his way back in.

Granted, Utah is a special case. They have a unique system whereby candidates for the primary must first be selected by party delegates, not party members. The delegates tend to be more ideological than the general public. In this case they held Bennett's vote for the 2008 bank bailout against him, as well as his support for mandated health insurance (not obamacare, but an alternate proposal that nevertheless forced people to buy insurance). But that shouldn't diminish the message, as illustrated in Florida, Arizona, Nevada, and elsewhere. It's time for We the People to take back our country from career politicians, no matter what their party affiliation.

BTW, an interesting side note to Bennett's ouster is that it came in spite of public support from Mitt Romney, a Utah legend. Romney, a Mormon, remains a hero in Utah despite his role in passing universal health care coverage as governor of Massachusetts (fail1 here; fail2 here). Hopefully people will keep this in mind come 2012. Romney is not someone the repubs should even think about nominating.