July 1, 1999
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) _ Sen. Orrin Hatch is jumping into the race for
president more than a day late and millions of dollars short but determined "to
carry this banner" of Ronald Regan-style principles "win or lose."
"We're starting out $36 million behind but we don't need as much as the
frontrunner," Hatch said Thursday of leading GOP candidate George W. Bush's war
chest.
Bush, finishing his first term as Texas governor, doesn't have the
experience to be president and was "born in privilege," said Utah's senior
senator with 23 years in office who "had to work for everything in my life."
Hatch on the campaign stump is wearing his upbringing in poverty as a badge
of honor. Raised a Democrat and union laborer in Pittsburgh, he became a lawyer
and followed his Mormon family roots to Utah, where he was first elected to the
Senate in 1976.
His latest congressional disclosure puts his net worth at between $790,044
and $2.12 million.
After talking it up for two weeks, Hatch Thursday made his bid for the GOP
presidential nomination official.
He registered at the Federal Elections Commission. Outside a CNN studio in
Washington, D.C., he took questions from reporters in Salt Lake City by
telephone, then made an appearance on the Larry King Live show, talking by
satellite to its host in Los Angeles.
Hatch says the GOP field of a dozen candidates lacks competition with Bush
way ahead in the polls and in dollars raised, and that he's the one who stands
out in experience.
He gave his top issues as fighting crime, especially juvenile crime,
bridging racial and class divisions and a rebuilding the U.S. military.
Opposed to abortion rights, Hatch said the next president will have a chance
to reverse what he sees as a liberal drift on the U.S. Supreme Court, where he
expects three justices to retire.
And he doesn't need as much money as other candidates, he says.
Hatch fund raiser Frank Suitter said he's yet to raise a single dollar to
Bush's $36.25 million, although Suitter said he's received "commitments" worth
several hundred thousand dollars, as much as Hatch has in his Senate campaign
account.
The Judiciary Committee chairman plans to run for his Senate while seeking
the GOP nomination for president.
"We can do both things," Hatch said.
Suitter, Utah's former GOP chairman, admits Hatch will never been in Bush's
league when it comes to raising money.
"Texas has big boots, big belts and big banks," Suitter said. "We're
starting from under ground zero."
By registering with the FEC, Hatch will be required to regularly disclose
contributions and expenditures. Like many of the other GOP presidential
hopefuls, however, Hatch is calling his campaign committee an "exploratory
committee."
Hatch has had difficulty explaining why he jumped in the race a year after
many of the GOP candidates began campaigning. But "I'm going to give it a rip,"
he said Thursday.
(Copyright 1999 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
APTV-07-01-99 2025MDT
