Republican Tea Party voters defeated long-time Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, and replaced him with fiscal hawk Mike Lee during the 2010 midterm elections. Heading into the 2012 election cycle, a state senator from Utah is talking the talk about following the same path to defeating Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, in the name of cutting government spending.
“God bless Orrin Hatch for his service to this state,” said state senator Dan Liljenquist, R, who is strongly considering a run against Hatch, in a recent telephone interview. “I was two years old when he was elected and he’s been there a long time representing the state. But elections really are about the future, and I’m looking for leadership on these entitlement issues, the issues I focused on in the Utah legislature: long term spending, the long term trajectory of our budgets, and trying to make sure those issues are tackled before they become disastrous.”
