研究政治的人第一次真正注意茶党运动还数两年前。当时茶党在犹他的门徒拒绝提名江湖地位崇高的鲍勃-本内特竞选连任，直接宣告了他的政治生涯的终结。满脑袋疑问的国会议员们肯定想问，如果本内特还不够保守，到底地球上还有没有人称得上保守了？有一个人在这个问题上费的脑筋比其他人都多，花的时间比其他人都长。这个人就是犹他另一位江湖地位更高的共和党参议员奥林-哈奇。他从1977年就任职至今。

　　On April 21st Mr Hatch survived the test that undid Mr Bennett: he won a ballot for the nomination at the state’s Republican convention. Thanks to the local party’s complicated electoral procedures, he still has to face a tea-party-backed challenger in a primary, to be held in June. It is slightly awkward to be running for a seventh term considering that during his first campaign he denounced his opponent’s three terms as too many. But he has reason to be confident: he came within a whisker of avoiding the primary, falling just 32 votes short of the 60% threshold required to secure the nomination at the convention. Assuming that the primary electorate is less conservative than the diehard lot who attend the convention, and given that Mr Hatch has the edge in fund-raising, he should prevail in the primary too. And what with Utah’s strongly Republican slant, winning the primary more or less guarantees re-election in November.

　　4月21日，哈奇没有在本内特倒下的地方摔跟头：他在州共和党会议的提名投票里赢了。由于该州选举程序复杂，他仍然要在将于六月举行的初选中与茶党人士苦战一番。对他来说，竞逐第七个任期有点尴尬——当初他初出茅庐时，曾经批评对手三任就已经太多了。不过他应该自信满满：他只差32票就可以拿到60%选票，可以直接赢得提名。根据经验推断，初选的选民没有参与党内会议的死忠分子那么保守，加上哈奇在筹款上拥有优势，他在初选中理应取胜。而又由于犹他州十分青睐共和党，赢得初选或多或少就等同于在十一月的大选中胜出，顺利连任了。

　　This muddled outcome puts America’s pundits in a quandary. Had Mr Hatch gone down to defeat, the tea party would have been declared alive and well; had Mr Hatch sailed to victory, it would have been declared moribund. Clearly, it is not as potent and unpredictable a force as it was in 2010. Yet Mr Hatch, already towards the tanniny end of the Republican spectrum, has survived thus far by significantly strengthening the brew he serves his constituents. His lifetime rating from the Club for Growth, a conservative pressure group, is currently 78%; but in 2010 and 2011 he scored 97% and 99% respectively.

　　这纠结的结果可让美国的各路专家们犯了难。如果哈奇被击败的话，他们大可以宣布茶党运动风头不减当年，如果哈奇大胜，他们又可以说茶党已经是昨日黄花。不过很明显的是，茶党已经不再像2010年那么强大而不可捉摸了。然而本来已经相当保守的哈奇，为了赢得选民芳心还是下了猛料。在保守派游说组织“成长俱乐部”的评分里，他整个政治生涯的是78分；不过在2010和2011年中，他的评分分别是97分和99分。

　　Mr Hatch is not the only Republican grandee to have shifted nimbly rightward. Dick Lugar, a Republican senator from Indiana who is equally venerable (he and Mr Hatch joined the Senate on the same day) and even more embattled, is breathing an unaccustomed amount of fire these days. Even Olympia Snowe, a moderate Republican senator from Maine who recently declared herself so disgusted with the polarisation of Congress that she is not running for re-election this year, has been inching to the right since 2010.

　　哈奇不是唯一一位向右急转弯的共和党大牌，来自印第安纳的迪克-卢加最近也在鼓吹与其立场不符的保守政见。他江湖地位与哈奇平起平坐，同日就任，战况却更是四面楚歌。就连缅因的温和派参议员奥林匹亚-斯诺也在2010年以后渐渐向右靠拢。她早前已经宣布由于受不了国会的两极分化而不会竞逐连任。

　　That does not mean, however, that the tea party is winning the war even if it has lost a few battles. For one thing, even in the giddy days of 2010, the general electorate deemed several of its candidates beyond the pale. And Mr Hatch, for all his conservative bona fides (he has introduced bills in the Senate to amend the constitution to require balanced budgets four times over the years), worked happily with no less a leftie than Edward Kennedy to bring in children’s health insurance and the Americans with Disabilities Act. He voted, too, for TARP, a bill called for by George W. Bush that bailed out banks when the entire financial system seemed on the verge of collapse—as 90 other Republicans did. In short, he is willing to embrace the odd political compromise, which is exactly what the tea party holds against him.

　　然而，这并不能说明茶党失之东隅，收之桑榆。比如说，即使是在2010年那些光彩夺目的日子里，普罗大众似乎也觉得他们的几名候选人很不靠谱。虽然说哈奇是保守到了骨子里（他在任期间曾经四次提出平衡预算修正案），他仍然曾于爱德华-肯尼迪这样的左翼分子愉快合作，促成了儿童健康保险以及美国残疾人法案。他也对《问题资产纾困法案》投了赞成票。该法案在小布什总统呼吁下通过，紧急援助了银行业以及整个处于崩溃边缘的金融系统。和哈奇一样投赞成票的还有另外90名共和党人。用一句话总结，他愿意达成临时的政治妥协，这也正是茶党看他不爽的原因。