The longest serving Repub senator of all time, Orrin Hatch, has announced his retirement. More to the point Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) read the polls. He would win re-election at 84, no doubt, but he knows the turnout would be uninspired. Utah is a peculiar state politically, and otherwise. After decades going into the 1890’s it was a U.S. Territory. Utah leadership, read Mormon Church, had been a largely polygamous entity. In order to be granted statehood the United States Government had insisted it drop its multiple wives way before it could be admitted to the Union. Miraculously, the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints received a message from God that it should abandon the practice. In 1896 it was admitted as a state. Currently, the state that leads the nation in use of anti-depressants has already crowned a successor to Hatch. Welcome Mitt Romney.
Why not? A former Massachusetts governor, and Bay State senate candidate, is the preferred choice at age 71 in March. He’s 1 for 4 in campaigns, but a wonderful Mormon who kept the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City at a time a bribery scandal threatened to derail the Games. A Salt Lake City mayor, and several officials were forced to stepdown. This is a “thank you.” It has been decreed. One must feel bad for 2016 erstwhile presidential candidate, and stooge, Evan McMullin. Used by the neo-cons to deny Trump an easy red state Utah win, and hence, the presidency in a close race, he is looking to cash in his chips. McMullin shamelessly draped himself in full Mormon ethical pureness, and went against the crude Republican nominee. Trump won by 18 points in Utah. McMullin, a former low-tier intelligence operative, who promoted that experience to the dismay of the CIA who frowns on such things, was a puppet candidate of Bill Kristol, et al, to exact revenge for hurt feelings. McMullin has fallen in line. Other future political offices dangled in front of the wide-eyed, and relatively young embarrassment to his former agency, and all-around eager beaver.
Orrin Hatch is a man of political aplomb, while keeping his ethics above board. A hard working young missionary who did the work of two LDS missionaries in memory of a passed broher, he is known as a “good guy.” Famously, he helped pull the late Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), out of his early ‘90’s personal turmoil. Kennedy regained his step, and went full on in the 1994 Massachusetts Senate race against his first real challenger in years, Mitt Romney. Small world. Hatch still has a painting of Kennedy’s hanging in his senate office. One of the great behind the scenes senate backstories. True bi-partisanship. Senator Hatch’s work in passing the recent Tax Bill ended in a verbal lovefest with President Trump.
The Mormon Church wants Romney in Utah. He lives there now. A graduate from Brigham Young University to boot. His son, Josh, a Utah real estate developer, had been tinkering with a run. Five will get you ten he will succeed his father in the senate. It is how it works. Mitt Romney could have won, in the view of many, if he just had the stomach to put away sitting President Obama after a brilliant Diet Coke infused performance in the first presidential debate in the fall of 2012. Even on approach to Boston’s Logan Airport on election day he actually thought he would be the next president. A kind of heavenly entitlement. After harshly lambasting Trump in 2016 he ran to the president-elect like a Pavlov dog with the possibility of a cabinet position. Not an ounce of shame noted.
Romney could have continued as a Republican Party wise man. Holding his famous summer retreats, and taking a victory lap while spending time with his family, and advising his Church. Instead, he will get back into the fray. Maybe a Trump supporter, or critic. Depends which way the wind is blowing. Political office, and the limelight is a drug. Mormon, or not, the drug is powerful, and Mitt is addicted.
It would be wonderful if the voters of the beehive state of Utah, with a current, and declining, 63% LDS population, will que up and pull the lever free of Church preference. Probably not. Welcome to the chamber Senator Willard “Mitt” Romney this time next year.
Could a non-Mormon win a state-wide election in Utah?
ReplyDeleteMaybe, but you better be in line.
Delete