• Sen. Hatch survives conservative primary challenge in Utah

    Colin E. Braley / AP

    Senator Orrin Hatch, along with his wife Elaine, thanks his supporters after his primary win Tuesday night.

    By Michael O'Brien

     

    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.

  • Romney rallies top donors with Utah retreat

    By NBC's Garrett Haake

     

    PARK CITY, Utah -- After two days of meetings, meals and hobnobbing with the candidate, his top advisers and leading figures of the Republican party here in this exclusive resort community, Mitt Romney's biggest donors and bundlers say they are fired up and ready to go.

    Charles Dharapak / AP

    Mitt Romney greets attendees at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference in Orlando, Fla.

    "I’m going to do everything that I can do. I’m going to bundle every penny I can get," said Michigan lawyer Rodger Young, a long time Romney supporter who, like the hundreds of other guests here, have raised or personally donated more than $50,000 to Romney's campaign. "I think I came here with the idea that we were all going to take on more finance responsibility and I’m certainly prepared to do that."

    "It’s even more than hopeful," a donor from New Orleans said of the atmosphere at the retreat. "We are beyond that now."

    It is precisely that spirit which Romney and his campaign are looking to capture with this weekend's retreat, designed as a rally, a reward and a launching pad for top donors to continue to support the campaign -- and get their friends and family to do the same.

    To generate such goodwill, Romney's campaign invited the donors and their spouses here for two days of briefings on campaign strategy and policy issues, intermixed with opportunities to rub elbows with Republican stars like Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, as well as the candidate and his family.

    On Friday night, the campaign hosted a welcome dinner at Park City's Olympic park. Guests were ferried from their hotels by bus, up the mountainside, and treated to spectacular views and a cookout-style dinner where former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu and former Secretary of State James Baker warmed up the crowd, and introduced Mitt and Ann Romney. The couple gave remarks and mingled with guests who were also entertained by Olympic ski-jumpers practicing their technique on the ramps and pools at the facility, which remains a training center for Olympic winter athletes.

    Saturday's festivities began with a breakfast and included a strategy briefing from top campaign advisers. Among the highlights of the day, according to several donors who attended the event, was a lunchtime speech by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who received not one but two standing ovations for a speech one attendee described as "exhilarating."

    Rice along with Ryan and Jindal are among the names tossed about as part of the weekend's other major storyline: with few exceptions, nearly every Republican thought to be under consideration to become Romney's partner on the ticket is also attending this event in some capacity. Sens. Bob Portman, R-Ohio, and John Thune, R-S.D., are on the guest list, as are former Govs. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Jeb Bush of Florida, as well as the current Virginia governor, Bob McDonnell.

    The Romney campaign has been tight-lipped about the vice presidential vetting process, with only Florida Sen. Marco Rubio confirmed to be receiving a "thorough vetting."

    But Romney's adviser in charge of that process, his former Chief of Staff Beth Myers, has also traveled to Utah, along with most of the top figures of Romney's high command in Boston, fueling speculation -- even among the donors and campaign advisers here -- that this weekend away from the rigors of the campaign trail may also figure in to Romney's vice presidential selection process.

    Saturday evening and Sunday the event will wrap up with dinner, desert and dancing, according to a leaked copy of the agenda, and with the opportunity to play golf on Sunday at a private course in the area -- all designed to foster camaraderie amongst those most involved in financing Romney's campaign, and to get them excited about November.

    To hear the donors tell it, the strategy seems to be working.

    "Things are looking pretty darn good," Young said.

  • Big Romney donors headed to star-studded retreat this weekend

    By NBC's Garrett Haake

     

    GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Some of Mitt Romney's most deep-pocketed donors will flock to Utah for an exclusive gathering this weekend featuring top Republican political figures and strategists.

    More than 100 of the GOP's top fundraisers and bundlers will attend the "First National Romney Victory Leadership Retreat," a weekend-long retreat intended to rally, educate and reward the men and women who have been the primary financial backers of the presumptive nominee's campaign thus far.

    The attendees will be treated to presentations, briefing and panel discussions featuring an all-star cast of Republican politicians, including several thought to be among Romney's top vice presidential choices.

    Among the possible VP contenders a Romney campaign adviser confirmed would be in attendance are former Govs. Tim Pawlenty (MN) and Jeb Bush (FL), Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The GOP's last presidential nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain, will also attend, according to Republican sources familiar with the event's schedule.

    Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell will speak at one of the weekend's two major dinners, according to a McDonnell staffer.

    The Washington Post has reported that Sen. John Thune, Rep. Paul Ryan -- two other rumored VP short-listers will attend, as will Republican power-broker Karl Rove. NBC News has not independently confirmed this information.

    "All the major players of the party will be there," Dallas businessman Ray Washburne, who will attend the retreat, told NBC News. "Its kind of a reunion of all the people who worked hard on the campaign so far."

    Washburne is indicative of the type of Republican rainmaker the Romney campaign intends to woo, and reward, at the retreat. The real estate developer, investor and restauranteur headed up a recent Romney fundraiser in Dallas that brought in $3.6 million for the campaign, and has co-chaired Romney's fundraising effort in the Lone Star state after the first candidate he supported -- Pawlenty -- dropped out of the race.

    The invitees are primarily those donors who have raised enough money to qualify as national finance committee members, one Romney adviser said.

    "The party is all falling in behind the candidate now, and this is kind of the first kind of anointment of Mitt by everyone," Washburne said.

    On Saturday, attendees will be briefed by top Romney campaign officials, including political director Rich Beeson, and the famously media-averse campaign manager Matt Rhodes, on the state of the campaign and strategy going forward. That night they will also attend the second of two dinners with the candidate himself.

    Attendees at the weekend-long retreat will at gather at a resort hotel in the mountains surrounding Salt Lake city, not far from where Romney first rose to prominence by running the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002, and in the state where he still retains a rock star-like political status.

    Romney and his guests will be far from the prying eyes of most media. The entire three-day conference is closed to the press, and Romney has no public events in Utah to draw reporters here otherwise. His campaign has refused most official requests for comment on the conference, including several made for this report.

    When the conference concludes at the end of the weekend, the campaign will continue with one major question -- likely to be discussed all weekend -- that will remain unanswered: Was the vice presidential nominee among those in attendance?

    "That's all anybody wants to know," Washburne said.

    NBC's Alex Moe contributed.