worried about facing a credible primary challenge next year

To borrow from a well known script: "I do not think that word means what you think it means"

Orrin Hatch is an enemy of the constitution and the idea of personal freedom.

I doubt there is any attack on rights in this country that doesn't have at least some of his imprint on it.

Another moral scold who thinks he knows best.

Having this piece of human garbage being defeated after so many years of serving his masters by the nut-bag tea-party droids would be delicious irony.

Just so you know we all aren't a bunch of lock step repubs., here is a letter in the local morning paper:

"This is an open letter to always-articulate Sen. Orrin Hatch, who, if quoted correctly, called President Obama a "dumb-ass president." Of course, the ‘s's were left off in the printed quote, but we all know what he meant. The senator professed all the usual generic bluster about policy disagreements, and that's fine. I don't even mind that he called the Affordable Health Care Act "crap," though I disagree with his finely nuanced analysis of the bill.
You may not like President Obama. You may disagree with him. But he's not a dumb ass. He's college-educated, a former professor, a constitutional law scholar, author, former senator from Illinois and our president.
You can insult him all you want in private. Calling a duly elected public official a dumb ass in public? At minimum, that's just tacky.
You should apologize, Sen. Hatch."

Orrin is about to be Tea Bagged by his own Republican brand! -Kevo

So, in order to win, he feels he has to morph from Orrin Hatch, to "Booby Hatch."

This guy was about as far to the right as you could get 15-20 years ago, now he looks like a flaming Liberal.
God help us all.

I've lived in this godforsaken state of Utah for 45 of my 80 years and I can tell you Hatch is an embarrassment even to Utah. But the teapot Mike Lee is even worse. He claims the entire US government is unconstitutional.

The worse thing? People in Utah elected Lee and keeps on electing Hatch. Now I read that the Census figures are helping the GOP to get even stronger in Utah through redistricting. I didn't know that was possible.

A major disagreement with Steve Benen...

It's kind of sad to watch.

No Steve, it is a wonderful thing to see any and all wackjob repukes self-immolate because they are not wacked out enough for their base!

Why do these guys in their late 70s care so much about getting another term in the Senate that they are willing to ditch their principles and humiliate themselves? (see Spector, Arlen)

Shouldn't they be fishing?

i always thought that orrin hatch's tie was tied too tight. it looked like his eyes were bugging out.

Why do these guys in their late 70s care so much about getting another term in the Senate that they are willing to ditch their principles and humiliate themselves?

I suspect many of them tend to get addicted to the easy access to high-priced call girls that their lobbyist friends are only to happy to supply them with.

As a substantive matter, Hatch probably doesn't realize states will be able to craft their own policies if they decide to come up with an alternative to the Affordable Care Act.

Why Steve Benen insists on writing like this is utterly beyond me. It is a major distraction. There is a zero point zero zero zero zero percent chance that Hatch is unaware that states can create their own schemes.

Why does Benen say stuff like this?

If you thing Orrin and Mikey Lee are pieces of work, wait until Jason Chaffetz, the tea-baggy lusting after the O-mans seat, hits the trail. He is a nutjob extraordinare....

but the skiing is nice. Our state leg session is 45 days long; given their twisted views, it is a great testament to the importance of limited government - it is probably 40 days too long.

"Orrin Hatch, as far to the right as he is, has generally tried to maintain a certain degree of stature and respect."

Obviously, you haven't watch C-SPAN as much as I have. . .

As bad as Hatch is, and he's awful, whoever is his primary challenger has to be that much worse. One wonders if that's possible, but the last two years have demonstrated there is no bottom to the shameless, know-nothing, bigotry of the teabaggers, and the hypocritical pandering of the GOP elite.

When even a reactionary actor like Hatch isn't safe in today's political environment the severity of our national psychosis has reached a critical point.

"Profane"?

Technically, there's nothing "profane" about dumb-ass or crap. Now, if "Booby Hatch" (thanks, c u n d gulag!!) had said the "g***d***" word, THAT would have been profane.

Someone is surprised when a member of the majority demographic in Utah demonstrates that the best way to understand him is to remove the second "m"???

Well, I'm glad for this post. I just saw Hatch on the PBS Newshour talking about health care, and he was awful. He made statements that were demonstrably false, and refused to acknowledge it when facts differed from what he said.

He said Democrats didn't work with Republicans to craft the health care bill. Then what the hell was Max Baucus doing with his "gang of six" for months on end? He said governors didn't believe the health care waivers proposed by the administration were worth the paper they were written on, but when the interviewer said his former Senate colleague and present Republican governor of Kansas Sam Brownback thought the waivers opened the door to alternatives, he didn't say "I'll have to talk to him about that" but just went on his merry rhetorical way. He said he didn't want to say bad things about his Democratic colleagues, but had no trouble saying that "anyone with a brain" knew the health care law wouldn't work, refusing to recognize intelligent and legitimate disagreements. And of course he called the mandate unconstitutional, even though he signed on to a plan in 1993 that would have required everyone to have insurance.

I haven't yelled at my TV so much in a long time. At least I know that it wasn't an aberration on Hatch's part. I now have a lot more sympathy for what Senate Democrats have to put up with.

Plus, he's going to look like Dukakis in the tank when he puts on his combat utilities and starts waving an assault rifle over his head. He's doomed.

Fascinating! I have sat across the table from Urine, I mean Orrin, many times. I have actually heard this kind of language and characterizations (much worse actually) from him for years. But, he is letting this out in public because the base in Utah County has gone completely insane - Chaffetz and Lee.

The amazing thing is that Hatch has been a super reliable supporter of disability rights for many years, and his health care staff is stellar. Seriously. And, he gives seriously good constituent service - even to liberals.

Truth is Hatch never had dignity. He does not even live in Utah, and only did for 1 year before becoming Senator. He has connections and sponsors with huge money, and has served them well. What is crazy is that even as powerful as they are, they cannot hold back the insanity of the Beckian base. Seriously, our former Governor - Huntsman - who won re-election with 78% of the vote in '08, would not get the party nomination this year.

The Republican machinery has been completely seized by libertarian-leaning big business and the racist Southern religious right. (Their "evangelism" now is found outside the region, and its' home congregations.) This rotting cocktail has been responsible for every problem in our country for the past 200+ years. They have risen again and need to be shaved off like the chancres they are.

"Someone is surprised when a member of the majority demographic in Utah demonstrates that the best way to understand him is to remove the second "m"???"

That is offensive shit. Do you feel OK about saying that of Catholics, Jews, Gays, Women, or any other group? Or are you a selective bigot. Better do you say, when "Obama talks at we know how to spell his race, n****r." Of course you don't, so stop the crap here.

So you will know, I am not Mormon, but my family was in the original group of pioneers to the state. For you to insult them is as disgusting as Orrin claiming their mantle. Sorry, my Mormon family was friends with Joe Hill and attacked by McCarthy, the liberal bonafides are in place - as are the intellectual ones.

Wake up! Hatch is a turd. He only lived in the state for 1 year before becoming Senator, and currently maintains a residence in Palm Springs. He is bought and paid for by powerful interests within and outside of Utah. I have heard him say goddamn more than once, the piety is an act.

Don't be an ignorant moron.

Henry Edward, @7:44PM.
Ignore TCinLA. Tom Cleaver, in Los Angeles, has a "thing" about Southerners (we're all inbred snake handlers) and Mormons (you're all morons). And, once in a while, whenever he forgets to take his meds (or maybe when the moon is full), he acts according to his name: he swings his hatchet around and his hatred spills over, like a tubful of untreated sewage. It's unpleasant, but it passes.

Hatch has been a hack for a long time now. It's sad but true. His actions and statements as a member of the Sen. Jud. Committee have be been disingenuous, to say the least, and disgraceful. And his appearance on the News Hour tonight would have been comical (his voice rose so high he sounded like he'd taken a couple of hits of helium) if he weren't so blatantly dishonest.

I've go to agree with dsimon. Hatch is going down the hatch and he knows it. If you listen to his rant on the News Hour it was completely out of touch with reality - and completely an effort to appear in touch with the tea baggers.

I knew he was in trouble the second time he lost his voice into a high-pitched squeak. No politician who is in control of his situation will squeak like that in public, and on national TV?

Hatch has lost control of his Senate seat and he knows it. He'll say or do anything to keep it, and I don't think he has any hope of success.

That's just my reading of his presentation on the news hour. He's toast, he's smart enough to be aware of that fact, and worse, there is nothing he can do to regain control of the situation. As Steve says, he does not deal with pressure well.

"Every state has different demographics, every state has different problems," Hatch told The Utah Statesman. "It's good to allow them to elect other people rather than a one-size-fits-all rich, old dumb-ass white man. We really are awful pieces of crap."

Hatch was a prominent participant at the funeral for Sen. Ted Kennedy, apparently they were close friends. I am finding it hard to reconcile that fact with the man (Hatch) and his vile pronouncements, his factual ignorance of policy, his outright lies and desperation to cling to office no matter the moral cost. He certainly is an unpolished and poor performer in his media appearances, has that always been the case? His lies aren't remotely convincing.