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Colin E. Braley / AP
Senator Orrin Hatch, along with his wife Elaine, thanks his supporters after his primary win Tuesday night.
Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch accomplished Tuesday night what few other veteran Republican senators have done in recent years, managing to fend off a primary challenge from his right.
The Associated Press declared Hatch the projected winner of the Utah Republican Senate nomination, emerging victorious in the first primary the veteran senator had faced since first being elected in 1976.
Conservatives had targeted Hatch for defeat this cycle, throwing their support behind state Sen. Dan Liljenquist, who hoped the Tea Party wave that has caused heartburn for establishment Republicans would carry him to victory versus Hatch.
Beating Hatch would have marked a significant changing of the guard in Utah, one of the most deeply Republican states, where the GOP primary serves often as the de-facto general elections. Conservatives managed to deny longtime Utah Sen. Robert Bennett (R) renomination during the 2010 elections. Mike Lee rallied conservative activists to deny Bennett the GOP nod, and was subsequently elected to the Senate that fall.
Hatch had seemed to have learned the lessons of that campaign, working assiduously to secure his conservative flank and building a warchest to beat back a Tea Party challenge.
He tacked to the right in tone and on certain key votes, locking up endorsements from talk radio favorites and even former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who’s more often than not endorsed challengers to established Republican lawmakers than the incumbents themselves.
Hatch's re-election strategy offered a roadmap for entrenched Republicans looking to fend off a conservative challenge. The Utah senator's approach broke, for example, from that of Sen. Richard Lugar's. The Indiana senator had largely been defiant of Tea Party forces, and lost a primary to State Treasurer Richard Mourdock earlier this year. Both Hatch and Lugar took office in 1977.
The early and aggressive effort by Hatch included an attempt to scare off would-be challengers before they even entered the race. The senator was particularly public in taking on two-term Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who had been viewed as a potentially formidable challenger but ultimately declined to run for Senate.
A major trump card for Hatch, though, came in the form of Mitt Romney. Perhaps no endorsement for Hatch was more important than Romney’s, who is held in high esteem in Utah due to his own Mormon faith, as well as the work Romney had done in 2002 to turn around the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. Romney appeared with Hatch in Utah earlier this month to underscore his support for the longtime senator.
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what we need in congress is real americans, one that respects our country and the citizens within. what we have is a congress, that is trying to please, wall street, that is a bunch of theives, and the big banks. if we do not turn congress around vote out the tparty, the republicans, we are going to suffer and suffer big time. romney hopefull will not be elected, he is a liar and thief.
lady,,Yes, we cannot have all those evil republicans moving all those Billions from the "green jobs" that last a year or two at a cost of 1-6 MILLION each! Or we cannot stop the race and class warfare that constantly spews out of this puke president and administration and are divideing the people more then in the civil war! I wonder what China will name our country when they call in the debt these MOOCHERS are burdening our children and grandchildren with?
tea baggers +mormons+Conservatism= really really bad Tea
Manuel: You got it right, their one similarity is their treatment of women as chattels.
I guess you don't have a clue about this country. The Tea party will do more good for this country than you're stupid comments.
Leftists/liberals/socialists=no morals and really really bad politics and government. For more info look up Obama.
@rapco alan, RL56....Back away from the Tea, slowly, you can do it, YES YOU CAN!
The Tea Party and the Republicans are only for the rich and the wealthy. They are the ones responsible for this economy. I don't understand how working people of this country could vote for them - wake up America.
RL56
Just how will setting the clock back 50 years "be good" for the country? The tea party are traitors to this country in every way. Made up of a coalition of Big money, (koch bros.) and racist, I don't see the tea party as anything any American should admire. President Obama has had many historic first and has brought this country back from the bottoms of the last republican president and deserves a second term. Without the tea bag congress that finds it more important to say the pledge to Grover Norquist then to say the pledge allegiance to the flag. Teabaggers are traitors, purely and simply.
If thre is anyone to the right of Orrin Hatch, maybe we should take another look at -235 degrees being absolute zero! Orrin and his challengers all seem to refuse to take a stand on polygamy. Why? Read Carolyn Jessop's book, ESCAPE, for "the rest of the story", on plural marriage. Sister Wives is a PR job, so soften the immage of polygamy!
Obama will lose in 2012!, thats all that matters.
Truer word were never spoken.
No he won't - he will win.
Read the article- Hatch moved right to save his seat- If he, Hatch, is honest, then the TeaParty really won- it moved Hatch and will continue to pressure him to vote their way. If he lied to get re-elected- then, Hatch will be hearing RECALL!
The citizens of Utah will know the truth very soon.
@Dakota Sioux...your funny! jejejejejejejeje and dumb! lol
I am sure Senator Hatch is a great guy and has served his constituents well. However, being a Senator since 1976?? Way to long...leads to corruption...
I won't bore you with the exact verbage from the Constitution, but here is what it says in a nutshell about term limits.
"From the beginning, senators were divided into three groups for staggered elections, so that one-third of the seats are filled every two years."
We have the answers to our problems right in front of us...why don't we simply enforce the Constitution? The founding Fathers are much more trustworthy than these clowns we have in office today...
Well said Dog. The Tea party more resembles the founding fathers,which explains the hate from the ultra left. Obama and his ilk are more interested in re-writting the constitution than following it.
what are the tea partier's doing then? they had all of this change the world mentality and it seems like all they have done is pander to the dems and republicans...a bunch of talking heads...
Not a big fan of Hatch but to see the defeat of the tea party is a good thing. The tea party is fast becoming passe that even those who ran as tea party favorites are beginning to see the error of their ways.
did this guy live through the civil war !!! more of this old @!$%# in government that amounts to a house of geriatrics on feeding tubes of free cash for doing nothing but sit and stare at chamber walls with alzheimer !!!!
There are several old fossils that need to put out to pasture. Along with Hatch, there is Lautenberg, McConnell and Reed are the few that come to mind. Any others that you can think of?
WAKE UP AMERICA !!!
We need in this Country a NEW EVOLUTIONARY TRAIL, NOT THIS GOING BACK TO THE STONE AGE !!!
Yes someone that knows we need to get OBUMMER out of there.
I here Jimmy Carter is all smiles now that he is NOT the WORST president EVER.
Worse the George Bush? naw, sorry, nothing is worse then this wanna bee war criminal. At least Jimmy Carter had morals.
When do these old dogs agree to limp away, anyhow?
The right wing Taliban evangelical Children of the Corn zombies and the right wing pedophile rapist gay catholic priests who own the repukes, only goal is to get constitutional amendments to ban abortion and have biblical fairy tale Creationism taught as the true science in all schools. These braindead repukes must never be allowed to get near the White House again.
They could care less about the economy.
Amen to that.
Blend right in with the left wing al qaeda leader in the white house now.
Hamm that was spoken like a true anti-amrican socialist liberal with no morals or ethics and lacking any personal responseability who seeks thru government what they refuse to work for.
@ Rapco Alan....... "anti-amrican", "responseability". Seriously Dude? you manged to sound and look stupid at the same time. LOL!!! love it
HE IS CORRUPTED FOLKS !!! How we still do not get it!!!!
Too bad this did not work out. The repukes almost lost their base.
Harold Camping, the evangelical king, got 500,000 of these pathetic radical right wing braindead evangelical Children of the Corn zombies to give up all of their worldly possessions to go meet and stay with the man in the sky. They are so easily brainwashed.
Camping, considered the evangelical king by many because of his 50 year history of bible study, promised to take away these right wing bible nuts on the last Rapture Day on Oct 21, 2011. All of his calculations were based on "biblical facts" When it did not work, he then realized that the bible in most part is "pulp fiction".
Yet these braindead fools continue to believe that there are men and boys with wings on flying around blowing horns.
The only thing to do to cure these zombies is to send them all back to the Garden of Eden on Noah's Ark to start over again, unless of course, they fall off the end of the flat earth.
These braindead idiots would still be believing in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, if their parents did not tell them otherwise. It is unfortunate, that none of their leaders are willing to tell them how worthless lyin Willardo is.
Many of them still believe that the earth is flat and that dinosaurs never existed. It is all a liberal conspiracy.
And your Santa Claus is the government.Ultra liberals like you Hamm believe in only one thing..cradle to the grave entitlements.You see buisness and wealth as evil yet you wish to make government your master to relieve you of your freedom which if givin the chance ...it will.
Seriously Rapco, you are so funny! LMFO!
Americans do not LOOK AT OR SEE the WHOLE NATION as ONE!!!
They see the HOLE their in and Can not think around a BLOCK AREA !!! (SQUARE)
Might as well be an ASS with BLINDERS ON !!!
Learn how to write you free cheese nibbling demofag. It's "they are or they're".
another moderate.. Just what we need! Lets send us to Greece debt oblivion. OBama in the fall along with free bies for all. Bankruptcy 2013!. We can always print our way out it. 100% inflation. WHen horses as s runs the show, all that needs to happen is the hole to shut and the rest of the body fails to function.
one excellent outcome is TEA-SHYSTERS CAN GO TO HELL AND BURN ! THE EXTREMIST NEANDERTHALS THAT THEY ARE! THE RACIST BIGOTS THEY ALL ARE !!!
And another example of a socialist democrat lib moocher and their love for their fellow man!
Wow, take it easy.
More of the same old tired pot calling the kettle black liberal trash talk Alain. If you have nothing usefull to say,and thats obvious,go bury your head in the sand again.And you can pound some of that sand as well.
Actions taken by the whitehouse in the last two weeks are that of a DICTATORSHIP , not of a nation of laws. Since when is "the right thing to do" in one persons opinion that usurps the law of the land the right thing.
For one thing barebrain it isn't one persons opinion, and if a republican (say G.W) did the same thing you would be all for it. So STFU and move along.
People in this country vote with their head in the sand. They know little about the happenings in DC. They have their blinders on chasing the carrot they will never get.
I love to listen to the whining liberals, i have found that everything the libs accuse the republicans of is exactly what they are doing. They accuse others of these things so they deflect attention from what there doing.
Nothing nor nobody whines louder nor longer then conservatives.
So, Hatch is going to die in office. He will be 85 if he survives next term. Who the h votes for these old guys. We have Bill Nelson in Florida. Another guy who will die in office.
Obviously, things haven't sunk low enough for Americans to take charge of their government. The government checks keep coming, and they buy enough to have a cell phone, cable and a flat screen TV.
It is SAD and also a not so pretty picture of our elected federal government WHEN a repbulican senator faced his FIRST serious primary SINCE 1976, 18 years or so, AND the party to give him a jolt of reality, these are elected seats NOT appointed royal ones, was the TEA PARTY, pretty much just more republican that the republicans, but not really caring about honest, open, fair government, just BEATING the democrats. We have choices BUT the only parties with power are the same ol', same ol'. Time for term limits and no government work 15 years before or after office.
the problem is the 2 party system it doesnt work we need more choices other than what the lobbyist, banks and wall street choose for us, the 2 party system is corrupt and broken both parties are the same, bought and paid for by the powers that be. re-electing dinosaurs like hatch just keeps the corruption in place, politics isnt suppose to be a career job, shame on you sheeple for putting this crud back into office, even the poorest of nations have 6 or more candidates and even they have more than 2 parties running their government why, it cuts down on corruption, its not hard to figure out we the people dont really elect anyone, open yer eyes, the games rigged the powers that be anoint and choose, who will further their agendas, the only way to get clean government is a trip back to 1776. God help us all.
love hearing ppl moan about having term limits then turn around and re-elect these long time nitwits to another term
The founding fathers intended that the common man leave his farm and serve the people for a couple of years and then return to the farm. They did not intend for us to have career politicians like Hatch. As far as I am concerned: Mr. Hatch is a politicla insider who is a self-righteous player handing out pork barrel scraps to his people in NV and they fell for it again. Enjoy your new tourist center. Enjoy the new trees in that park. But guess what? You voted the same old piece of crap into office and I thought you guys were all about change for the better. You can't have change by electing the same old morons into office.
Wow, you people better catch up! Identity theft is already a felony! It's up to the states as to who qualifies for benefits (remember that whole state's rights issue?)! Finally, wouldn't Romney have been fined, under that bill, for hiring illegal aliens to mow his lawn?