You probably won't see a TV ad this year of a youthful 42-year-old Orrin Hatch staring into the camera and saying, "18 years is enough."
Democrat Pat Shea would love to play the ad for you. But he can't find it.Hatch probably has it, but he isn't going to give it to Shea - whose main campaign theme is exactly what the youthful Hatch was saying way back when, that 18 years is enough. Of course, Shea is saying 18 years is enough for
Hatch. Hatch, 60, first elected in 1976, used the 18-years-is-enough tactic successfully when he unseated then-Democratic Sen. Frank Moss. One - or perhaps several - 1976 Hatch ads ended with Hatch looking into the camera saying, "Senator Moss, 18 years is enough."
Ever since Shea entered the race against Hatch last March he and his staff have been looking for copies of the 1976 Hatch ad, knowing it would be a great tool. But they can't find a copy.
1976 was before many people owned home video recorders, and Shea can't find any political junky who taped Hatch's ad. While various libraries contain archives of old campaign slogans, literature and TV and radio ads, no one can find a copy of the Hatch ad among those.
"We thought the University of Utah library might have a copy, but they don't," Shea campaign manager Mike Reberg said. Shea has hinted several times that Hatch aides may have stolen any copies from the U. library. The library does have the official papers of Frank Moss, including a number of old Moss commercials. But library officials say Moss' papers never have been cataloged, just kept in boxes, thus no one knows for sure what they contained when they came in. While it's true no copies of the 1976 Hatch ad are among the papers, there's no evidence Hatch aides or anyone else took them.
At a recent address before the U.'s Hinckley Institute of Politics, Shea said he finds it strange that from a collection of 400-odd old political advertisements, the 1976 Hatch ads are missing. "I hope that win or lose, after this election is over the Hatch campaign will donate those ads to the library so the collection can be complete," said Shea.
Hatch campaign spokeswoman Heather Barney says she's never seen the 1976 ad but knows that Hatch has kept his ads and other items from past campaigns. "If we do have it, you can say we won't be making it available" to Shea, Barney said. And that's understandable, responds Reberg.
Tuesday, Hatch told Salt Lake Rotarians that it's true he had "a very effective" TV ad in 1976 in which "I looked right into the camera and said: `Senator Moss, 18 years is enough.' I was being kind to the senator. What I really should have said was: `Senator, 18 years is enough for you.' "
The power of seniority is a wonderful thing, said Hatch, if the seniority is used for the people of the state. "But it is a very bad thing if it is used against your state, and I believe it was (in Moss' case) because he (Moss) was voting more in align with Ted Kennedy than for Utah."
Speaking of how important it is for Utah that Republicans win control of the U.S. Senate in the Nov. 8 election, Hatch said he would become chairman of a powerful committee. When Republicans held control of the Senate from 1981-1987, Kennedy didn't set the agenda of the Labor and Human Resources, of which he is now chairman. With Republicans in control then, "Ted Kennedy had to go with my agenda, not his . . . or should I say with your (Utah's) agenda, because that's the way it was."