With four GOP challengers breathing down his neck, then Sen. Bob Bennett asked his Republican friends in the Senate for help and they broke out their checkbooks.

That was back in December 2009, before Bennett lost his bid for re-election in the state convention. At that time the National Republican Senatorial Committee gave him $42,600 and a number of individual senators sent him cash too.

But Sen. Orrin Hatch may not get the same love leading up to his 2012 re-election campaign, which most prognosticators expect to be one of the hardest fought in the nation.

A reporter with Mother Jones asked Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, the head of the NRSC, about Hatch. Cornyn, who is sponsoring a Balanced Budget Amendment with Utah's senior senator, said: "the concerns are pretty obvious... and I think [Hatch] is getting prepared."

So what about an infusion of NRSC cash like Bennett received? Cornyn's not excited about the idea.

"My preference, all things being equal, would be to have our incumbents take care of their own needs in the primary stage," he told Mother Jones. He added that he didn't expect the NRSC to put any money into Hatch's primary campaign.

-- Matt Canham
Twitter.com/mattcanham