Orrin Hatch has one really big thing going for him. He’s not up for reelection until 2012. If he was, it looks like he’d probably getting the axe like his senate colleague Bob Bennett did over the weekend. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that among this year’s delegates to the state Republican convention, fully 71% would have backed a candidate other than Hatch. And among the state’s voters generally only 35% support him.
As I said, Hatch isn’t up again until 2012. It’s hard to imagine the general mood of anti-incumbency and Tea Partyism could get any more intense by then. And it seems like a decent bet that both will subside a bit by then. But you can already see Hatch perhaps trying to get right with the ultra-conservatives in his state party. Bob Bennett yesterday left the door at least a bit open to the idea that he might run in November as a write-in candidate. And Hatch was right there to try to slam that door shut.
It looks like we’ll be seeing Hatch going into Tea Party overdrive over the next two years to avoid Bennett’s fate.
