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Go Home The Sad End Of Orrin Hatch

JONATHAN CHAIT MARCH 15, 2011

The Sad End Of Orrin Hatch

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

The long-time Senator facing a primary challenge, a once-rare event that has grown increasingly common, spurs all sorts of reactions. Some rage against the activists. Some slip away from the party quietly. Perhaps the most common reaction is to desperately suck up to the base.

Jesse Zwick has a great (subscription-only, so subscribe!) report on the sad spectacle of Orrin Hatch, once the gold standard of GOP right-wingery, unsuccessfully trying to ingratiate himself with the handful of loons who control the state's party nominating process:

Due to Utah’s arcane nominating process, however, the real battle is fought at the grassroots level, and that’s where Hatch has encountered the stiffest resistance, although not for lack of trying. Utah’s primaries are largely decided by a mere 3,500 delegates who are elected at precinct meetings a few weeks before a state convention, meaning that Hatch has had to seek their votes by lavishing attention on the small group of very conservative activists who will decide his fate.

Kirkham, who owns a custom-made-auto company in Provo, says that the six-term senator has called him frequently, sometimes as often as three times a week, as well as on his birthday. Darcy Van Orden, a co-founder of the Davis County 9/12 Project and author of an unpublished manuscript titled The New Nazis, which describes how professors attempt to brainwash and indoctrinate students in the classroom, says she has also had her fair share of conversations with Hatch. 

The really sad thing is that they're not going to vote for him anyway. He'll lose his seat and his dignity.

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26 comments

I recall an article back in the Jurassic era in TNR entitled "Borin' Orrin," in 1982, I think. Was it by Timothy Noah? I can't recall for sure, now. Well, you might say he is not boring any more. How about Grovelin' Orrin?

- liberalref

March 15, 2011 at 1:25pm

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Am I still expected to feel pity for these right-wing politicians who suddenly find themselves no longer right-wing enough in a party gone mad? There's nothing sad about this at all. By running away from his own meager accomplishments, Hatch will earn the humiliation and defeat coming his way. I, for one, will relish it. If there was a way to bottle the pain and anguish inflicted upon Hatch and those like him, I'd drink a six-pack of it on election night and go to bed with a smile on my face.

- DC Spence

March 15, 2011 at 1:26pm

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Well, you rads want to heighten the contradictions. As for sane, sober, sensible me, I am sad. The Tea Party types are disfiguring our politics even further.

- liberalref

March 15, 2011 at 1:30pm

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Well, I am a mix of those stances....I WILL drink a lot of chardonnay and go to bed on election night with a smile on my face on the day Orrin Hatch goes down but, at the same time, it IS sad watching it. The Tea Party types are definitely a virulent and dangerous strain in our political body but it's pathetic watching these old bulls try to appease them.

- VBKim

March 15, 2011 at 1:50pm

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You have a fair point, lib ref, but why not also a note of disapproval for the utter failure of the rational conservative camp in the GOP to stand up to its lunatic fringe? How come our side gets the back of your hand? Is not the "disfiguring" proceeding apace, not because DC imagines his six-pack but precisely because the Tea Party wants to "highten the contradictions" and nobody is resisting them?

- ironyroad

March 15, 2011 at 1:55pm

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The best way to crush the Tea Party half-wits is to give them a taste of power. The contradictions of their mindless, nihilistic, virulently tribalistic will destroy them once they are exposed to the scrutiny of the public square. This is already starting to happen. It began in Wisconsin, but it isn't staying there.

- DC Spence

March 15, 2011 at 1:57pm

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"Darcy Van Orden, a co-founder of the Davis County 9/12 Project and author of an unpublished manuscript titled The New Nazis, which describes how professors attempt to brainwash and indoctrinate students in the classroom..." So *that* is what was happening to me in college all of those years. Here I thought I was getting an education and teach me how to think and analyze stupidity when I see or hear it. Silly me.

- tmmats

March 15, 2011 at 2:01pm

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IRONY: Quite so. I thought that was implied from what I wrote, but perhaps it was not clear enough. The GOP establishment brought this on. They chose to surrender to their crazies rather than battle with them. I might pity Orrin Hatch if he was fighting back. But he's raised his hands in surrender and, appropriately, it won't save him. Hatch and many others like him will lose their jobs because they won't defend their ideals. I should pity these moral cowards?

- DC Spence

March 15, 2011 at 2:01pm

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It is my hunch the Tea Party is nearing a point where they will discover themselves unable to win elections. Utah aside most every where else the Tea Party is going to get pushed back.

- Bukharin

March 15, 2011 at 2:04pm

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Hatch's generation pried opened Pandora's box of extremism and now they are getting eaten by what flew out. The only thing that is sad is how long it took. There is no escaping karma.

- WandreyCer

March 15, 2011 at 2:24pm

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I am firmly on the side of reveling in the suffering of those vaguely sane Republicans who brought this on themselves. They held the reins of government for decades, all the while screaming that those in government were evil and not to be trusted. Now, their followers truly believe. Time to pay the piper.

- janus

March 15, 2011 at 2:29pm

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I have repeatedly written about the epistemic closure (the wonderful term deployed by the libertarian blogger, Julian Sanchez) which has resulted in an hermetically-sealed right-wing in America, irony. Have you caught none of my fulminations? Must I include that in every post? Anyone who reads my comments even periodically out here has to have come across these sentiments of mine. Let's see: How about if I tack on the following to every post of mine? - Rational conservatives are not taking on their side's lunatics (RCANTOTSL). How's that? RCANTOTSL, irony, RCANTOTSL.

- liberalref

March 15, 2011 at 2:46pm

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The one thing I would disagree with here is that Orrin ever had any dignity. Despite his overly-dignified persona, the legends about him and his history of pandering are many. In ancient times he was a youthful Pennsylvanian who came to Utah and painted a gray streak into his hair to give him the gravitas and the more manageable population base to launch his political career. He ran on the slogan, "What to you call a senator who's been in Washington 18 years? You call him home!" Now, with a straight face, he's trying to double that. He's known to put makeup on any time he appears in public and for having an entirely different set of friends, vocabulary and political attitudes when he's in the East than those he puts out when he is among his adopted constituency. When he's up for election he usually introduces a flag burning amendment to the Constitution, not because he believes it has a prayer of passage, but because of how it makes him look like a rock-rib conservative defender of American values. The right wing of the Utah GOP long ago had him pegged as a conservative of convenience. His hot button is his dignity -- poke him there and you will see him purse his lips and stamp and scold like a peevish child. The thing that has kept him in power is simply the complete lack of statewide Democratic Party in Utah. But now the GOP has become so dominant that it has split into internecine factions where the only real political races in the state can take place and the few Dems in the state can at least get a good draft of schadenfreude if not victory champagne.

- Ouroboros

March 15, 2011 at 3:04pm

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libref: And we're supposed to feel bad for them as a result? Should I feel bad for the Saudi royal family, who now live in fear of a fundamentalist revolution after they put off discontent year after year by handing out money to the fundamentalists? Should I feel bad for the Iranian ayatollahs, who now fear the power of a youth revolution, after they glorified their own youth revolution and then spent decades betraying it? They built their empires on houses of cards, giving money and resources and credibility to the idea that the way things are is corrupt-and now they have to live with the reality of having been persuasive. How is this different?

- janus

March 15, 2011 at 3:07pm

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I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I LOVE watching people get what's coming to them. I think DC has a great plan for election day, might try that myself.

- GSpinks

March 15, 2011 at 3:48pm

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I will lose no sleep if Orrin Hatch tanks in the primary. I merely stated that the Tea Party's disfigurement of our politics is sad. How hard is that to understand? That should not need any interpretation, it should stand on its own. Some of you are denser that iron ore, I swear. Also, a number of you remind me of a longtime friend of mine, whom I met in college 37 years ago. He likes to think of himself as an "All we need is love" kind of guy. That is indeed part of him, but a larger part of him is very punitive. I will tell you what I have told him; I would rather see things fixed up, you would wish to exact revenge, or at least revel in Schadenfreude. Y'all highlight a point that I have long made, that many liberals are at least as punitive as conservatives are, they just have different sets of targets.

- liberalref

March 15, 2011 at 4:01pm

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Bullshit. I'll feel bad when Richard Lugar loses his primary. I felt very bad when Mike Castle lost his. The same is not true of Orrin Hatch.

- Jbryan

March 15, 2011 at 4:07pm

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Absolutely! liberaref - I have continuously and unabated-ly referred my closest comrades/comradettes to read your posts!! "Epistemic closure," is indeed a superb/wonderfully-precisely apt phrase. A few days ago whence invoking the greek (a magnificent theological/interpretive) word: "hermeneutic" - I marveled and again thereby insisted my comrade(s) peruse your posts.

- Bukharin

March 15, 2011 at 4:16pm

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If the Republicans hold on to the seat it would be sad if the Tea Party advances, either by pushing Hatch their way or putting someone in more extreme than him. There is a simple solution to this: ABOLISH PLURALITY VOTING. The moment we adopt an electoral system adhering to independence of irrelevant alternatives, the Tea Party's power will be kaput.

- sighthnd

March 15, 2011 at 4:19pm

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Will someone explain to me why I'm supposed to accept the notion advanced above by Bukharin that the TPers will eventually find themselves unable to win elections? Did they not win elections this time? What does anyone expect to change? Are liberals going to quit sitting at home sulking on Election Day because the president or congress didn't give them the right color pony? Are ignorant clods suddenly going to get smarter? Please explain to me what provides any reason for optimism. Folks, this is going to get out of control and people are going to get hurt.

- cspencef

March 15, 2011 at 4:30pm

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libref: Why must it be one or the other? Why can't we enjoy a little Schadenfreude before we get down to the business of responsibly governing? Is that so different than enjoying electoral victories in November, never forgetting the hard work that lies ahead in January?

- janus

March 15, 2011 at 4:39pm

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"lose his seat and dignity" just like john mccrab! repugs have no shame.

- jjanit

March 15, 2011 at 5:21pm

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Lib Ref, ok. RCANTOTSL it is. NECIAMA [Not every comment is a major assault]

- ironyroad

March 15, 2011 at 6:47pm

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I don't have a problem with the Utah Teabaggers. Hell, they can HAVE Utah. And Mississippi and Alabama, too, for that matter. It's where they've gained footholds in civilization that prompts me to worry.

- W_Bombay

March 15, 2011 at 8:46pm

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I thought that Stalin had you dispatched, Bukharin. NEPOMIDOI: Not every post of mine is devoid of irony.

- liberalref

March 15, 2011 at 9:27pm

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Lib ref, I've always wanted to say that to Bukharin! I'm glad someone finally grasped the nettle.

- ironyroad

March 15, 2011 at 10:27pm

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