More than a few members of the US Senate have made a spectacle of their contempt for President Trump in the last eight months.
Already two of them are not running for reelection.
And a third has reportedly told friends that he has decided not to seek re-election next November.
Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah has been serving in Congress longer than some members have been out of diapers.
But the even bigger news is that Mitt Romney has already told friends he’ll seek the seat should Hatch follow through with his retirement plans.
That kerfuffle between Mitt and Trump during the primary could reignite after Mitt was snubbed for Secretary of State.
This could get interesting.
Here’s more from HotAir…
Don’t whine. Trumpers need an establishment enemy in the Senate to hate and Romney is the perfect foil. You won’t have Corker and Flake to kick around by 2019 and McCain might retire before then for health reasons. Ben Sasse will still be there but he’ll need to tone down his Trump-bashing with his own 2020 reelection bid creeping up. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are reliable no votes but neither one of them is likely to spar with Trump rhetorically as Corker and Flake have done. And we’ve all seen how timid the, ahem, libertarians — Mike Lee, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz — are when it comes to battling with Trump. All three of them just endorsed Roy Moore, for cripes sake. They’re not going to wrangle with a populist POTUS.
It’ll be Senator Romney by default who’ll quickly become the base’s prime hate object and the de facto leader of the anti-Trump caucus. It’s gonna be lit. Lit, I tell you.
Unless of course Romney rolls over and becomes a Trumper too. In which case “Salon Conservatives” club will disband in ruin and disgrace.
Senator Orrin Hatch has privately told allies in Utah that he is planning to retire at the end of his term next year, and if he does, Mitt Romney intends to run for his seat, according to five sources familiar with the situation…
Sources close to both men said plans have already been set in motion for Hatch to retire and for Romney to run, but they cautioned that the timing of the announcements has not yet been finalized, and that either man could still change his mind. They spoke on condition of anonymity, because the plans are not yet public, and the subject is sensitive to Hatch. Already, though, the expected developments are reshaping the state’s political landscape…
People close to Romney say his desire to serve in the Senate now—at a time of tremendous political upheaval and widespread GOP infighting—is multi-faceted. He has told friends that he is alarmed at what he regards as the recklessness and incompetence of the Trump presidency so far, and that he’s worried about what long-term effects Trumpism could have on the Republican Party. Friends also say he is restless and eager to get off the sidelines, and that after years of losing campaigns, the prospect of an all-but-guaranteed electoral victory is extremely tempting.
