It's called retirement.

U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon is there. The Republican lame duck from Utah County was the lone member of Utah's House delegation to vote for the controversial Wall Street rescue package - twice.

While Reps. Rob Bishop and Jim Matheson continued to test the political winds, Cannon and others gave them cover - and the comfort of knowing the bill would pass anyway.

"Certainly, politics plays into any vote in Congress. I'm not going to talk about the motives of others," says Cannon spokesman Joe Hunter. "Almost any Republican had some concerns about it. Congressman Cannon had some freedom because of his current position."

Republican convention delegates and primary voters finally have set Cannon free. Despite his enthusiastic bit part in the Clinton impeachment hearings, he's never been conservative enough to satisfy them. GOP challenger Jason Chaffetz told them what they wanted to hear about illegal immigration and global warming and they unceremoniously dumped the six-term incumbent. Now, after 12 years of hanging on by his enamel, Cannon doesn't have to worry about re-election.

So he can do things that Matheson and Bishop can't. They complained about Congress' rush to pass something, anything; both say they wanted more time. And both cast their votes only after it became clear the bailout would pass anyway.

When the market was tanking two weeks ago, after Lehman Brothers' collapse, Bishop was debating his Democratic challenger in Logan, blithely arguing for free-for-all capitalism: "The free market is far superior to the federal government regulating," he said, to whoops and hollers from the crowd.

Then, he went back to Washington and grandstanded with other Republican ideologues for a cheaper, "free-market-based" alternative. When the bill finally passed Friday, he washed his hands: "I hope it works."

Matheson, on the other hand, says he wishes the $700 billion bailout had addressed the underlying problem in the U.S. economy - foreclosures and declining home prices. He figures that in January, Congress still will be working at the details.

"It may very well displace all other issues in the next Congress, in terms of being front and center," he told The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board Monday. "This was a first step."

Like every member of Congress, Matheson's staff fielded calls all week from outraged constituents. After last Monday, when stock portfolios and 401(k)s lost more than $1 trillion in value after the failed House vote, the numbers dropped. But Matheson spokeswoman Alyson Heyrend says they never tipped in favor of saving Wall Street. Matheson, she says, voted his conscience.

"People are trying to make this a political vote and I don't think it was," she says, noting that liberal Democrats in safe districts - Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and New York Rep. Maurice Hinchey among them - voted against the bill.

But it's not just coincidence that no GOP freshman voted for the package, while 82 percent of House Republican retirees - the statesmen and women, if you will - voted for it, according to The Washington Post.

And they, like Chris Cannon, will not be back.

walsh@sltrib.com