‘I Want You to Know Something’

Memories, personal and political, of Orrin Hatch (1934–2022)

O rrin Hatch was an exceptional person — unique. He was a senator from Utah, a Republican, for 42 years. He passed away last weekend.

Hatch was a friend of mine. I have few friends in politics — I mean, among candidates and officeholders. He was one. He loved music, for one thing, and composed music. (I am a music-lover too.) He was not an e-mailer — at least not with me. He sent handwritten notes. And he had an enthusiasm, even in his later years, that most people associate with youth. There was a gee-whiz quality about Orrin, which I found endearing. Not that he wasn’t a wily ol’ pol. But he was still gee-whiz.

Also, he was kind. Very, very kind. Certainly to me, and from what I hear, to just about everyone else, too. Moreover, he appreciated kindness in others.

In the 2000 presidential cycle, Hatch made a brief, and quixotic, run for president. I covered him in the summer of 1999, when he was campaigning in New Hampshire. My piece was titled “Salt Lake Steeler.” He had a Utah career, for sure (as well as a Washington career). But he was born and raised a gritty, scrappy Pittsburgher.  (He boxed, for instance.)

“Salt Lake Steeler” is not available on the Internet, but I have a copy from the National Review archive, and I’ll do a little quoting from it.

The piece began,

He’s late, but he’s in: Orrin Hatch is running for president. When he announced on July 1, he was only $36 million behind — that’s the amount George W. Bush had raised. Said Hatch to the press, “I believe in miracles — and it will take one to elect me.”

That statement is characteristic of the Hatch we knew.

“He certainly has no problem with shyness,” I wrote. (True.)

Over and over he declares that he’s the best man for the job — “the most experienced, the most qualified, the most battle-hardened,” the most everything. “I’ve got guts,” he says, “and if I get a little money, I’ll tell you what: I’ll win this doggone thing.”

I commented, in a parenthetical aside, “Hatch has a large vocabulary of mild oaths, which he deploys liberally.”

Hatch was a Reaganite — an early and unabashed one — and he let people know, that day in New Hampshire:

At every turn, he identifies himself with Ronald Reagan, recalling the “shining city on a hill” image the ex-president loves so well. He reminds people that he was Reagan’s “principal surrogate” in the ’80 campaign: “I was Nancy’s date at a big dinner up here!  And I was with them in their motel room, sitting on the couch, when the returns came in.”

In my piece, I said that Hatch was waging a bit, or more than a bit, of a log-cabin campaign. “People may think of him as a white-bread Salt Lake Mormon,” I wrote, “but he’s actually a gritty Pittsburgher, a poor steel-town boy who worked his way up from nothing.”

Have some more:

The family had no indoor plumbing, he says, which meant that the Hatch kids trooped 100 yards along a dirt path to an outhouse (which is why “I never pass up a bathroom”). He supported himself as a janitor and a lathe operator (“I was the fastest, the best,” he brags, “and I could still do it darn well”). A break came when he won an honors scholarship to a Pittsburgh law school. “I know what it’s like to be hungry,” he avows.

In light of the populism dominant today, you may be interested in the following:

. . . he is not above a little class warfare, noting that other candidates are “children of privilege.” Does he feel a speck sheepish about using such language about his rivals? “Heck no!” he says defiantly, although with a half-smile and a twinkle. “We do have some class difference out there in the country. Why shouldn’t I talk about it?”

Here’s a little more:

He plans to run “an unusual thing: a Republican campaign for the working people.” He will get “the blacks, the Hispanics, and everyone else,” he says. “The Democrats just want to exploit them. I want to help them.” If given the chance, “I’ll change the face of this party. We’ll have a big Republican party for the people, not the fat cats — and we’ll still do all right by the fat cats!”

That last line is pure Orrin. One of the reasons I loved him.

Turn, now, to a very important topic:

The issue on which he is utterly untempered is abortion. He talks about it passionately, even when he doesn’t need to. Asked before a clutch of TV cameras about “litmus tests” for judges, he launches into a graphic description of a partial-birth abortion — the scissors, the skull, the whole works. His eyes are on fire. Once, when he starts to say “pro-choice,” he chokes on the “ch” and switches to “pro-abortion.” Towards the end of the day, talking about his family in Pittsburgh, he describes his eight brothers and sisters, one of whom “died in pregnancy.” He counts that unborn child as a sibling.

By the Left, Hatch was viewed as an arch-right-winger, certainly in 2000. But the Right had other problems with him.

Hatch has been attacked by conservatives (including the editors of National Review) for his propensity to compromise — as in his legislative alliances with Ted Kennedy, a friend. He is both mystified and irked by the criticism. “I’m a member of Congress,” he says. “I deal in the realm of the relative, not of the absolute. If I can’t get 100 percent, I try for 90. If I can’t get that, I go for 80. And so on — until I can climb back up to 100.”

In that presidential cycle, George W. Bush, the governor of Texas, was campaigning as a “compassionate conservative.” Hatch thought of himself that way too, though he avoided the words. His line was: “Government should help those who can’t help themselves but would if they could.”

He was proud of his efforts against pediatric AIDS, and for daycare. On the campaign trail in New Hampshire, he visited a children’s center. There was a boy named Jesse. “I have a son named Jess,” Hatch said, “and my dad was Jesse, and so was my brother who died in the war” (World War II).

There was also a boy named Joshua. “That’s a pretty important name,” Hatch told him. “You better live right! Joshua was a very great Old Testament prophet!”

In my piece, I commented, “Hatch maybe a touch goofy in this situation, but he is totally, exuberantly himself.”

On a flight out of Concord, he and I talked about the Mormon question: Could a member of that church be elected president? “I’ve experienced prejudice my whole life,” Hatch said, citing several instances. “I can’t do anything about the bigots, but I can try to do something about the people who are misinformed.”

A poll, he said, had found that 19 percent of people would not vote for a Mormon under any circumstances. “That’s okay,” said Hatch. “I’ll try for the other 81 percent.” He also said, “One of the reasons I’m running is to make it easier for the next guy.” (The “next guy” turned out to be Mitt Romney, in 2008 and 2012.)

Before we parted that day, Hatch grabbed my arm and said, “I want you to know something: I love everyone. There is good in everyone. And I’ve always tried to do what’s right, even when I’ve been wrong.”

I wrote, concluding my piece, “Simple stuff. But that’s Hatch — and not bad.” No, not bad at all. “You’re the best,” he would sometimes sign off, in his notes. I felt the same way about him. “Blessings,” he would also say. I’m very glad that Orrin Hatch existed.