The DesNews political editor Bob Bernick makes an argument that Utah's GOP candidates are paying for its ill-fated education voucher program. In case you've forgotten, Republican lawmakers last year pushed through the nation's most extensive voucher program — ignoring polls that showed voters did not want a voucher program.

The vouchernistas maintain that a threatened voucher backlash has not materialized in their elections. But Bernick says the numbers show that voucher pushers are being opposed within the party and by Democratics. Interestingly, the few moderate Republicans who stood against vouchers are seeing less opposition from the party's right than they have in the past, he says:

So, while it is true that about the same number of GOP lawmakers are being challenged this year within their own party as in years past, in many of those races it is also true that the lawmakers' votes on vouchers — either for or against them — seems to be reflected in their intra-party challenger status in 2008.

And when you include Democratic challengers to incumbent Republican lawmakers, it becomes even more apparent that Utah Democratic Party leaders did a good job in recruiting Democrats to challenge GOP incumbents in part because of the voucher issue.