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Washington • A tea-party strategist who tried two years ago to defeat Sen. Orrin Hatch — and helped topple Sen. Bob Bennett before that — will now be a key architect in the re-election effort of Hatch's colleague, Sen. Mike Lee.
Lee has hired Russ Walker, the national political director of the tea party umbrella group FreedomWorks, to serve in the same role for Lee's 2016 campaign.
FreedomWorks spent nearly $1 million in 2012 trying to unseat Sen. Orrin Hatch, and Walker was at the forefront of the effort.
"There is no reason why Orrin Hatch should represent Utah," Walker told Politico at the time. Hatch, after spending millions, won re-election.
It was a different story in 2010, when FreedomWorks and Walker helped Lee take out Bennett. The group has been a big supporter of Lee's Senate actions; He is one of only two senators with a 100 percent voting record on the FreedomWorks scorecard.
The establishment Republican Party has tried to tamp down intraparty challenges in recent years — as FreedomWorks and similar groups back challenges to incumbents in bruising, money-fueled primaries.
While Lee has sought to broaden his appeal in the last year with a conservative-populist approach, his hiring of Walker suggests Lee doesn't plan to walk away from the groups that got him to the Senate chamber.
Lee spokesman Brian Phillips says Walker, who has worked for Republican candidates during his career and for FreedomWorks, or its previous incarnations, for 14 years, can help the cause of party unity.
"Senator Lee for the last year and a half has been talking about the divide between the establishment and the grassroots," Phillips says. "This is an effort to do the same type of work to bring the two sides together."
FreedomWorks, which has gone through some turmoil since its public break with former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, plans to endorse Lee again and praised the recruitment of Walker to help the Utah senator win another six-year term.
"Everyone thinks the only thing we do is these insurgent primary campaigns," says Adam Brandon, FreedomWorks' executive vice president. "Well, as these guys get elected, then you have a responsibility to protect them, protect our champions; Otherwise they will be wiped out by others."