One can only wonder what went through the mind of the Hon. and honorable Orrin Hatch of Utah when he read the Christmas Day editorial in his hometown newspaper. Maybe something akin to what Thomas de Mahy, marquis de Favras, said aloud on reading his death warrant during the French Revolution: "I see that you have made three spelling mistakes."
Will wonders never cease? Finally an editorial in these modern times that takes a stand. And has people a-talkin' about an editorial position. By a newspaper!
The Salt Lake Tribune may have done the unthinkable: It printed an editorial that, as Mencken once suggested, takes a line. It named Sen. Orrin Hatch, the longest-serving U.S. senator in a chamber full of old-timers, the Utahn of the Year. But not for good reasons. It skewered the senator for everything from tax reform to his part in the scaling back of the Bears Ears National Monument. He was named Utahn of the Year in the same sort of context that Time magazine sometimes names world villains Person of the Year.
A few weeks later, after the editorial made national news, the senator, now 83, announced he wouldn't run for re-election.
NB: The Book says, in red letters no less, that no prophet is accepted in his own country. But 75 percent of those surveyed in Utah said they didn't want Sen. Hatch to run for re-election. Although he had received more than 65 percent of the vote in the 2012 election. How one term can change things.
A different president can change things, too. Orrin Hatch is said to be one of President Trump's loyalists in the Senate. And every day that goes by with this president tweeting about how big his nuclear button is, demanding jail for an American citizen who hasn't been convicted of a crime yet, criticizing his own Justice Department as "deep state," throwing allies under the national security bus . . . and that was just Tuesday last. Trump fatigue may have shown up first in Utah.
Enter Mitt Romney, stage right.
The former presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor lives in Utah these days. Those in the know say that Orrin Hatch refused the president's pleadings to stay in the Senate, and instead will make room for Mitt Romney, should the voters agree. And Mitt Romney, outside a 5-minute flirtation with the administration-elect about this time last year, has been a vocal critic of the president.
Mr. Romney's chances of election to replace Sen. Hatch? Hear a longtime Utah Republican and chairman of Sen. Hatch's political organization when he told the papers: "It would be difficult to defeat Mitt Romney if he were running here."
Call it a resurrection.
Republicans don't normally eat their dead. How many times was Nixon finished? Lest we forget, Ronald Reagan ran for president, unsuccessfully, in 1976 before going on to become the Great Communicator starting in 1981. John McCain had a couple of shots at a promotion. At one recent point in American history, a whole generation of voters came of age with a Bush or a Dole on the Republican presidential ticket. Every. Single. Presidential. Election.
So it would be just like us--that is, Americans--to give Mitt Romney a second, or maybe third or fourth, chance. And it couldn't happen to a nicer fellow. Mitt Romney is the kind of man they made fun of on Saturday Night Live, not for his weaknesses and faults, but because of his lack of unpleasant habits. Because he wasn't a drunk. Because he loves his family. Because he doesn't curse and fume. Because of his honor. (Making fun of his kind of people is what too often passes for network entertainment.)
It might have been F. Scott Fitzgerald who said, or was misquoted saying, that there are no second acts in American lives. However he meant it, the fact is that in this country you certainly might get a second act, but only because you're on your way to a third. And beyond. What a country!
Welcome back to the stage, Mr. Romney. Maybe 2018 won't be so bad for Republicans as all these experts think.
Editorial on 01/08/2018