Posted on 05/24/2012 10:32:26 AM PDT by Servant of the Cross
The two people least surprised by Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Senator Orrin Hatch this week are Palin and Hatch. In the Twitter and Facebook era, they became political allies the old-fashioned way: through handwritten letters and personal phone calls.
It’s an unlikely, politics-fueled friendship that’s fit for a Robert Caro book. Hatch, a soft-spoken grandfather, is one of Palin’s top outside mentors. He encourages her and cheers her. They share family stories, they discuss history, and they talk about legislation.
“It’s true,” Palin tells National Review Online. “He’s a warrior.” She respects his record, especially his work on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Hatch has frequently been an influential figure during contentious Supreme Court confirmations.
Even though she is 30 years his junior, Palin has grown to appreciate Hatch’s historical perspective on Congress, the presidency, and the conservative movement. “I respect public servants who benefited from and grew under the tutelage of Ronald Reagan,” she says.
The warmth is mutual. “She and her husband are the handsomest couple that I’ve ever met,” Hatch says, smiling, as we chat in his spacious Senate office. “They’re both top-flight people and I got angry with the mainstream media constantly running her down.”
Hatch openly acknowledges that he has long and doggedly sought Palin’s support. For him, strong personal relationships are an elemental part of politics. They do not trump his principles, he says, but they have enabled him to become a force on Capitol Hill.
Strategic relationships may also be the reason Hatch keeps his seat. Beyond Palin, the 78-year-old senator has assiduously wooed tea-party activists and conservatives over the past two years, keenly aware of the challenge he faces in Utah’s upcoming primary.
Dan Liljenquist, a conservative former state senator, has mounted a tea-party insurgency against Hatch, but he failed to topple Hatch at the state GOP’s nominating convention. Liljenquist remains the underdog as primary day, June 26, approaches. But his campaign team maintains that Palin’s endorsement isn’t a factor.
“Sarah Palin can do whatever she wants, but this doesn’t affect our race,” says Holly Richardson, Liljenquist’s campaign manager. “Endorsing Orrin Hatch is the antithesis of what she says she represents — breaking up the old guard and bringing change to Washington. But I guess they’re friends.”
Hatch’s quiet courtship of Palin is a microcosm of how he has managed to stay ahead, unlike some of his fellow incumbents, such as Senator Dick Lugar of Indiana, who lost a similar primary race earlier this month. Hatch has gone out of his way to make friends.
Two years ago, Hatch’s former Senate GOP colleague, Bob Bennett, was ambushed at the state convention and lost his reelection bid. Hatch vowed to not let that happen to him. He would respond to the potshots; he would not let his detractors define him.
The plan was simple, Hatch says. Instead of merely reasserting his conservatism from the Senate floor, he would huddle with conservatives at tea-party rallies and conferences. He would overwhelm them with his liveliness and his commitment.
“I saw this movement coming before Senator Bennett did,” Hatch recalls. “A year before the Bennett race, I invited David Kirkham, a Utah tea-party leader and an outstanding man, to come meet with me in my office. I spent two and a half hours with him.”
Since then, Hatch has hosted similar meetings with countless Utah conservatives. He didn’t agree with everyone who stopped by his office, but he tended to ease concerns. He is encyclopedic about his record and takes care to contextualize the troublesome votes.
“From time to time, I have been criticized by some in the conservative movement,” Hatch says. “When they are right, I’m going to follow what they say. But most of the time, I have been able to explain why I voted a certain way or did certain things.”
Palin was another tea-party leader who gave Hatch an opportunity to review his Senate experiences, from the Clarence Thomas hearing to his near-victorious battle to pass a balanced-budget amendment. Hatch also says he learned from her. “She is the prime reason the conservative base really played a factor in the last presidential election,” he says. He keeps tabs on her speeches and appearances.
“She’s sharp as a tack,” Hatch says. “I like the way she defends herself and our conservative values.” When she was attacked in the press, he’d defend her in conversations with reporters, during talk-radio interviews, and on cable television.
Sources close to the Alaskan say Palin noticed Hatch’s consistent and vocal support. It drew them closer as friends and deepened their growing political ties. Palin didn’t mind having a Senate legend in her corner; Hatch liked having a tea-party star in his.
When Palin went on Fox News on Tuesday night to signal her support for Hatch ahead of the primary, it was a pleasant surprise to the senator, but not entirely unexpected.
Early Wednesday, the pair spoke on the phone. “I told her that I love her and her husband,” Hatch chuckles. “She said, ‘We love you, too,’ and that she’s here to help.”
“Look, it was a nice conversation,” Hatch says. “I can’t claim that I’ve been a major influence for Sarah, other than what she may have observed from all the fights around here. But I must say, I’ve watched her very carefully and I think the world of her.”
They may be from different generations, but it’s a fighter’s instinct that, in Hatch’s telling, binds them. “She’s had more than her fair share of barbs but she keeps coming back,” Hatch says. “I never give up, either.” In this race, oddly enough, that may mean killing off a conservative challenge.
Thank you for the reference to the hour long audio.
Do you realize how long it has been since Hatch performed all these miracles?
I am certainly no authority on The Chronicles of Hatch, but for the increasing number of times he broke our heart and the bond with conservative voters.
The voters were unified, deliberate and hopeful that this time they could give him a run for the money, perhaps another calling card to attribute to the TEA PARTY.
He is cunning and knew whom, if anyone, could be helpful in pulling his fat out of the fire. All I am saying is it worked, and it’s a good match.
She saves him, and he can be a fine mentor for her.
Mark Levine, btw, has folded, for the presumed nominee, and is not all that rebellious or resistant to the GOPE, obviously.
I see Palin as the mentor to the conservative movement and to other politicians like Perry who I think she emboldened back in 2009 and encouraged him to speak out more strongly like DeMint started doing after seeing Palin surviving and fighting, when has she ever needed or had a mentor, she is the mentor and the example.
Yes, she certainly has been all that.
Ain’t it the truth.
I am amazed at the effect she has on people and how she has managed to move the country right since her debut in 2008.
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Not being a smart ass - but the US in 2012 is further to the right than it was in 2008? Before Obamacare? Before the repeal of DADT? Defense of Marriage act?
I’m just puzzled I guess.
So Hatch had to change his stripes & host conservatives. Wonder where he was all of those other yrs.
In November and December of 2008 it looked like conservatism was dead, and that Obama was a start of a new future of Democratic dominance with little influence left from the old dead GOP and especially from conservatism, it looked as though the predictions and demographics had finally come together and that we had finally broken with the past and had entered into the future as long foreseen by the political left and the media.
Palin was fighting instantly in November of 2008, endorsing and taking it to the media, the right has been conquering and growing stronger ever since, we immediately started with little victories, and then made history in 2010, we are having victories and even taking on the public unions which seemed impossible in 2008.
We are stronger today and have a tea party, and a movement and influence and power that we didn’t have in 2008. We have weight to throw around today, we didn’t have that in 2008.
Good post. And a vivid illustration of your point is the following ....
In November and December of 2008 it looked like conservatism was dead, and that Obama was a start of a new future of Democratic dominance ...
Palin was fighting instantly in November of 2008 ... and then made history in 2010, we are having victories and even taking on the public unions ... and the future looked like this:
Print it. Mail it.
“What the hell is Sarah Palin thinking by endorsing this RINO POS?”
Seen it before with McCain’s 2010 Primary challenge against JD Hayworth. Of course, that time she supposedly “had to”. Maybe she “loves” McCain too. There’s a lot I like about Sarah but these are 2 instances where I really question her discernment.
I donated to Lilenquist.
This old post of mine addresses that McCain endorsement, and the 2008 ticket turning on itself.
If the vice presidential candidate for John McCain and the the biggest GOP superstar since Reagan had not supported McCain for reelection for his Senate seat, then it would have meant the destruction of her image, and of the GOP image and it would have been the non stop political story of 2009 and 2010, the division between the ticket of the previous year would have made the Republicans appear broken and shattered and would even have led to a widespread reevaluation of the importance of a Democrat victory in 2008, because it would make the GOP ticket look like it had been a sham, it would have damaged and have prevented this incredible change in public opinion towards the entire republican brand that Palin has helped reshape during the last 17 months.
Palin would have looked cheap and shallow to the general public for turning on the man that 59,000,000 of them voted for, she would easily be painted as a radical and unstable person and a bitter, small timer to the general public.
There is a lot more going on with the national image of the republican/conservative movement here than what we McCain haters see in the Arizona Senate race, the general public does not share all of our perceptions and in depth view of the race between McCain and Hayworth. They would see the Presidential and the vice Presidential candidates of the Republican party at each others throats, clearly signaling that Obama and the Democrats represented stability and calm.
Palin’s image would have never survived, and the entire national, conservative movement would be weaker in reality and in the public’s eye.
Once again, you hit outta the park.
Risking Hatch's safe seat would have been a huge factor too.
Hatch went up against Kennedy many times, most notably during the Clarence Thomas hearings. They remained friends in spite of their differences and I attribute that to Hatch’s ability to be true gentleman.
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