Jen's Green Journal

Bob Aagard's blog, The World According to Me, has been running a series called 1976. That was the year that Hatch won the Senate seat that he's been so jealously guarding for the past 30 years. The posts have been pointing out some of the things that Hatch said back in 1976, and it'd be really entertaining if it weren't so horrible.

I primarily vote Green, but I'm still enough of an independent that a candidate has to earn my vote. That said, I'm still not sure how I'm going to vote in the senate race this year. While this post shouldn't be taken as an endorsement, I do want to point out what a great guy I think Pete Ashdown is, and why he's so much better than Orrin Hatch for the job.

I checked out Pete's campaign website  and his collabortive page to see where he stood on issues that are important to me. I really liked almost everything I saw, only disagreeing on a few issues. Pete, of course, has a great reputation in Salt Lake as a generous and ethical businessman. His company, xmission has been known to donate web services to non-profits, some of which I've been working with. His collabortive page is a unique tool and I believe shows how well he'd work with constituents when in office.

For those of us that like to blog or use the internet in a myriad ways, you may have heard about the danger the free and open internet is in right now -- Pete Ashdown is our best bet to keep the internet free and open.

It seems to me that Orrin Hatch has become too emeshed in Washington D.C. over the last 30 years and is out of touch with Utahns. He seems also to have forgotten what the constitution is about with his recent support of the Bush Administration spying on Americans, many of whom belong to peace groups that practice non-violence, making the spying more of a political game than a legitmate security strategy. Hatch has in fact stood by Bush's side on many of his Orwellian policies.

Orrin has become what he campaigned against in his first run for the senate. From Answers.com:

In 1976 in his first run for public office, he was elected to the United States Senate, defeating Democratic incumbent Frank Moss, a three-term incumbent. Among other issues, Hatch proposed creating term limits for Senators, saying that many Senators, including Moss, had lost touch with their constituents.

Find out what other bloggers think about Pete Ashdown today (to be update throughout the day):

Orbiter Dicta by Steve
SLC Spin
Signifying Nothing
Gary Thornock
One Utah
The Utah Amicus
Formaline
Utah Democrats
Innisfree
Jeremy's Jeremiad
Dee's 'Dotes
The Third Avenue
Bloglet
Foxy Starbuck
Picklewagon

Campaign kick-off and press conference for Julian Hatch

Campaign kick-off and media event: Saturday, November 19, 2005, 6 p.m.
Free Speech Zone, 2144 South Highland Drive, Suit 130, Salt Lake City, Utah.

More info here.

It's kind of funny that several media outlets around the country and a couple of international ones have picked up on the ( Julian ) Hatch vs. ( Orrin ) Hatch story, but as of today only a couple of news stations have picked it up here in Utah. I think a press release went out today to the local papers, let's see if they have anything by tomorrow . . .

It's now almost official -- Julian Hatch, a distant relative of Senator Orrin Hatch will be challenging him for his Senate seat in 2006.

Julian Hatch is a member of the nationally affiliated Green Party of Utah, which will have to change it's name once the petition drive is complete. (The Greens that split off from the Green Party last year formed a rival party and won the petition drive race to claim the official name. Background can be found here. )

The announcement has run in papers around the country, and even in the Guardian U.K. and an Australian paper.

This should be an interesting and exciting campaign.

(Julian) Hatch for Senate Webpage