ANNOUNCER: It's time to go "One-on-One".

KING: You might say something is in the water this year for the Republican Party. To some, purity outranks pragmatism, seasoning and experience is playing out across the country. Florida's Republican governor saw no choice, for example, but to drop out of the GOP Senate primary to run on his own. In Utah, polling of delegates to this weekend's State Republican Convention show three-term Republican Senator Robert Bennett running third. He joins me now to go "One-on- One". And Senator, just let me start there. Why is your party so restless? What's in the water?

SEN. ROBERT BENNETT (R), UTAH: Well there's great anger about Washington. A lot of people say we hate what's going on; we hate everybody who's there. And in Utah the only anybody they can vote against who happens to be there turns out to be me. I keep telling him I'm not part of the problem, I'm part of the solution, and we will see at the convention whether I can make that sale.

KING: You're hearing this back home, Senator --

(CROSSTALK)

KING: What your opponents say is that you know in Utah you say you are a fiscal conservative, but when you come to Washington that in the Bush administration and now in the Obama administration, you are one of the Republicans helping to run up all this spending.

BENNETT: Well, I point out to them, those who will listen and increasing number of them do I say, you know, the areas in the Bush administration where the spending went up were three, number one, entitlements and I'm the only one of the candidates who has been talking about entitlements for a long time, now, Bridgewater (ph) and Lee (ph) both have gotten on that bandwagon, but I'm the leader that's pointed out that that's where the big problem lies. Number two, we are at war and defense spending went up. And number three, 9/11 happened and we started spending money on homeland security.

KING: You say those who would look at the facts. You're saying that in part some of this is emotion and some of it is perhaps not rational --

(CROSSTALK)

KING: We came out there -- we sent a crew out there for the caucuses earlier on and this week our political correspondent Jessica Yellin is out there and she says one of the complaints she hears repeatedly about you is that you didn't stop the health care bill from getting to the floor. The Democrats, of course, are in the majority. You don't have that power, but is that anger out there so palpable that maybe there is nothing you can do?

SEN ROBERT BENNETT, (R) UTAH: I think there is something I can do. The anger is palpable, the anger is very strong and that's why I'm in trouble. But if I meet with the delegate, if I spend time with them going through the facts, I find I can turn them around. Just this morning, I had a breakfast with a group of delegates and I said how many of you are undecided, a majority raised their hand and that's what makes me think I still have a shot at this.

KING: I want to come back to the broader political climate. As I do so, I want to go back in time to 1992 when Bob Bennett won election. You remember that year very well. It was the Perot year. There was a lot of fracturing in our politics. The economy was in tough times, and you had the Perot candidacy, the Bill Clinton candidacy, and people were mad at Washington. They didn't think Washington was answering their concerns in a time of a tough economy. And here is what you said on election night.

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BENNETT: The one thing that has not changed to keep up with the time has been the Congress. And so we ran on a platform to change the Congress, and if we can solve our Congress problem, then perhaps we can begin to solve our national problem.

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KING: It sounds a lot like what your opponents are saying right now, Senator. Is this a case of what goes around comes around maybe?

BENNETT: Well, it's very interesting that the desire for change is a constant in American politics. We've had 16 elections, presidential elections since the end of the second World War. The party in power has won eight and the party out of power has won eight. So, a lot of people campaign on change and I find this as I begin to remind the delegates that I have had -- I have been a voice for change and a one who has produced change and say, oh yes, we kind of forgot about that.

Now I say, no, I know how to do it, keep me there and I can keep doing it and that's the message that I think is beginning to resonate better than I did at the beginning.

KING: Let me ask you lastly about an issue that is resonating across the country right now, crackling, you might say, and it's an issue that divides many Americans. That's illegal immigration. Arizona, to your state south, just passed a tough new immigration law. There are some conservatives in your state who say we better match that or else illegal immigrants will leave Arizona and come in to Utah.

The delegates to your convention this weekend will consider a resolution, a pretty tough resolution that opposes illegal immigration, amnesty or any illegal status for illegal immigrants and any government benefits, temporary worker programs and the like. What is your sense of the Arizona law and whether you need to copy it in Utah and the current mood in the immigration debate?

BENNETT: I have a daughter who lives in Arizona, and I'm distressed with what she tells me. She says neighbors who have lived peacefully side by side for years are now screaming at each other. With one side saying, well, but the passage of this law, class size is going to go down and the schools, the emergency rooms will be empty. The state budget will go up. We will -- we will get nirvana. And the other side is saying this will be a police state. You'll have Gestapo on the streets. This will be the disaster that will end freedom as we know it.

We can solve the immigration problem without that kind of divisive rhetoric. It should be solved on the federal level so that the states don't have to get in it and too many of my colleagues at the federal level saying, no, we don't want to deal with it because it is controversial. That's the wrong attitude to take, as far as the Congress is concerned, in my opinion.

KING: In your opinion, should they deal with it including some sort of legal status for the 10, 12, whatever how many million American it is here illegally, those immigrants here illegally, I should say or should it just be border security first?

BENNETT: Well, you can start out with border security, but you have to then move very quickly to a guest worker kind of program that makes the border security effective because if the border patrol continues to spend all of its time -- not all, most of its time chasing chambermaids and lettuce pickers, you have a serious problem. Now, as far as the people who are here already are concerned, I don't think anybody should be rewarded for breaking the law. I don't think anybody should break the law without some kind of a penalty.

And we can work out some kind of a penalty that says, OK, we can -- if you have committed no other kinds of crime beyond overstaying your visa, for example, which is the case with many of them. They came here legally and then they overstayed their visa. If that's the only law you've broken, here's a very stiff fine for having done that all right. Now, your status is legal. Now, we'll talk about whether or not you qualify to get on this temporary worker program.

You'll notice in this conversation, I have not used the word citizenship. I don't think any of these things should be part of the path to citizenship. We have rules and laws for that and they exist now. I don't think they should be changed or loosened in any way.

KING: Senator Bennett, we thank you for your time. We'll let you get back to campaigning and we will watch closely the result of the state convention this weekend. Thank you, sir.