Sabato said the Senate can become a "ball and chain" to members who stay in too long, but that it is also up to the voters to decide when it is time for someone to go.

Moderate conservative

Hatch has pursued other ideas. In late 1999, he made a brief run for the party's presidential nomination but bowed out after a dismal showing in the Iowa caucus. And outside of politics, he has had success as a songwriter.

Hatch isn't talking about running for president again, but that apparently doesn't mean his time is up in Washington.

Brian Darling, director of U.S. Senate Relations at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C., said Hatch has not been in the Senate too long and is "looked upon as an elder statesman" who still accomplishes things for the state.

Darling worked on the Senate Judiciary Committee for former Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., while Hatch served as the committee chairman. He said Hatch has a "nice balance" between working in the Senate as an institution but also pursuing the interests of the state.

"He is very popular in the state. People don't perceive him as an insider," Darling said.

However, he did get a cool reception among party faithful in his last election, when he and then-Gov. Mike Leavitt were booed at the 2000 state GOP convention.

Hatch barely got the party nomination from angry conservatives who may have voted for him at the polls but wanted to send him a message that four terms in Washington had made him too liberal.

Hatch classifies himself as a moderate conservative. He wants to keep the country's top military power and make sure troops are equipped and ready to protect the nation's security, he said. He is against abortion and wants to pass a constitutional amendment that would overturn Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion, or see the court overturn the case.

But he does strongly support stem-cell research. He sees it as a way to solve health-care issues, which he sees as one of the main problems waiting in the future.

"For the same reason I describe myself as pro-life, I embrace embryonic stem-cell research, because I believe being pro-life is not only about caring for the unborn but about caring for the living as well," Hatch has said.

He and Elaine live in a Virginia suburb near Washington but have a home in Salt Lake City and try to get back to the state as often as they can.

"This is a full-time job here, there's no question about it," Hatch said.

Although Hatch's family has Utah roots, Hatch hails from Pittsburgh, Pa. He attended Brigham Young University where he met Elaine, a Utah native.