GOP Establishment Signals Primary Fight Against Tea Party Favorite Mike Lee

Breitbart ^ | 10/25/2013 | Michael Patrick Leahy

[Viennacon]

Tuesday, 79-year old Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), now serving his seventh term in the Senate, signaled that he and other members of the Republican establishment are likely to encourage a primary challenge to first term Senator Mike Lee (R-UT).

Lee upset former Senator Robert Bennett (R-UT) in the 2010 Utah Republican primary convention in the Tea Party's first major primary win over a Republican establishment politician.

Hatch told the Deseret News and KSL NewsRadio that "[i]t's time now... for Lee and other tea party Republicans to be 'rehabilitated' for refusing to pass a budget bill needed to keep the government operating unless money for the act better known as Obamacare was removed."

Hatch pointedly refused to endorse Lee for re-election to the Senate in 2016. "I'm not going to get into endorsements at this point in any way," he said. "The tactics were not the right tactics. It takes experience sometimes to make sure you can use the right tactics," he stated.

Former Utah Governor and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman has also joined the establishment crowd attacking Lee. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that Huntsman "said Lee has bucked a trend of senators who work to grow this small state in a way that makes people proud." According to Huntsman, in Utah "[y]ou don’t have ideological wack-jobs... For all of its labeling as a red state, underneath it all Utah is a pretty pragmatic Western state, a just-get-it-done ethos.”

Spencer Zwick, a Utah resident who was a key member of Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign's leadership team, also criticized Lee. "Business leaders that I talk to, many of whom supported him, would never support his reelection and in fact will work against him, myself included," Zwick told the Post. According to Zwick, Lee is just a "showhorse."

[Viennacon]

Hatch has gone FULL McLame. He must be stopped.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Orren, Orren, we used to love thee. Where have your principles gone?

[Lazamataz]

THE GOP IS MORE OF MY ENEMY THAN DEMOCRATS.

FUGOP

[Theoria]

Duh. Too late. There was a chance to get rid of Hatch. But, ‘others’ supported him instead. Hatch is good for amnesty and supporting bailouts.

[JRandomFreeper]

The Whigs will lose.

/johnny

[Lancey Howard]

Hatch is 79? I guess his age and all those years of hanging around with his drinking buddy Teddy haven’t been kind to Orrin.
He’s become a babbling idiot.

[smokingfrog]

He sounds worse than McLame to me. FUOH

[Paine in the Neck]

Jeez, I hope the people who endorsed Hatch and saved his butt from being primaried will take a lesson from this.

[Venturer]

Should have gotten rid of that old RINO bastard years ago.

[latina4dubya]

Where have your principles gone?

well, he was buddies with Ted K...

[old curmudgeon]

THE GOP IS MORE OF MY ENEMY THAN DEMOCRATS.

FUGOP

---

Exactly.

It is much more important to put Cruz and Lee in their place than it is to save the country from tyranny, economic collapse and whatever obumbler has in mind for us.

So many libs say that the dims won in the fight over defunding obumbler care.

Wrong.

The republican-e won. They beat Cruz and Lee and all of the other good conservatives.

But a battle does not win or lose the war.

Just look at Cornwallis’s win at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse.

And the outcome for Grant was similar.

[skeeter]

Flush the RINO turds.

[MagUSNRET]

I am still reeling from the night TGO endorsed this POS! Thank Goodness TGO has seen the error of his ways!!

[Dick Bachert]

I’m no longer certain just voting can save this place but we’d damn well better try. The alternative will be quite grim, whatever the outcome!

All Politics is Local!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk1bGBY3BcE

[jneesy]

if its a fight for the party they want then by god a fight they will get. I am more politically motivated now as I have ever been

[okie01]

"I'm not going to get into endorsements at this point in any way," [Hatch] said. "The tactics were not the right tactics. It takes experience sometimes to make sure you can use the right tactics," he stated.

And YOUR preferred tactics of "experience", Orrin, have accomplished exactly...what???

You might claim that you have yet to surrender. But that is because you have yet to even fight!

[Navy Patriot]

On the bright side we have two elections to sink a GOP-E RINO.

[niteowl77]

Many years ago I was told - by a well-connected Democrat - that Orrin Hatch was a nasty little prick who shouldn't be trusted by anyone. I dismissed this then, but over time I'd come to accept that there was some truth to it; about two weeks ago, Hatch's fully-realized "Dorian Gray" portrait was revealed. The gent who told me this is unfortunately no longer here to say, "I told you so."

Mike Lee, Ted Cruz and a handful of statesmen (as well as "stateswomen") did the unthinkable and - apparently - unforgivable: they showed the world who the Republican establishment really is. When people like my mother keep their money and stop volunteering any time or effort (she is DONE with them, BTW), the GOP need not be surprised. They used her and laughed.

The laughing will stop in 2014, and I suspect it is becoming a bit forced even now.

Mr. niteowl77

[AllAmericanGirl44]

Spencer Zwick, a Utah resident who was a key member of Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign’s leadership team

How many of these worms are there?? They keep poking their heads up, along with the idiots from mccains campaign.
I for one am thankful they are exposing themselves. They severely underestimate the level of engagement of we the people, big time.

[smokingfrog]

Palin endorsed him too.

Who knows what might have happened with a little more support. Still, he was forced into a primary run-off for the first time.

Sen. Orrin Hatch survives tea party primary challenge: how he did it