Sure, he has a list of biographical markers which he will quickly rattle off when asked: the impoverished Pittsburgh childhood; his early career as a metal lather; living in a refurbished chicken coop with his wife and children while he attended law school. But seldom does he go deeper.

Hatch, a tall man of 65 with a parson's carriage and rectitude to match, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, composer of inspirational songs, would much rather recount his legislative triumphs in exhaustive detail: his 1978 defeat of a bill which would have given unions more strength (``We'd have headed straight to socialism if that had passed''); his 1989 child-care bill; a 1984 bill he cosponsored which he says ``created the modern generic drug industry''; the many bills on which he has forged a bipartisan alliance with Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy.

Or he'll talk about his efforts during the Senate confirmation hearingson behalf of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who was accused of sexual harassment of Anita Hill. Hatch, perhaps best known nationally for holding up a copy of `The Exorcist' and suggesting Hill lifted her story from it, is confident these days that he has been vindicated, since, he believes, Thomas is doing a wonderful job on the Supreme Court.

But push hard enough, and there is this: In 1943, when Hatch was 10, a beloved older brother, Jess, was shot out of the sky in Italy. A B-24 pilot, he had been shot down twice before and survived, but not this time. On the day officials came to deliver the news that Jess was missing, Hatch's mother and father were sitting on the porch, and he was playing in the woods across the road.

``It was the first and only time I ever saw my dad cry,'' Hatch recalls. ``The day they came to our home, it affected me so drastically, I had a white streak up here,'' he says, pointing to a spot on the top of his head. ``I used to be pretty distinguished-looking before I became more gray.''

``It was a hard thing, because I loved my brother so much.''

His brother's death made Hatch want to live a life big enough for two. He started by serving two yearlong church missions instead of one, as most Mormons do.

And in those two years, in which he taught scripture and ``had an awful lot of meetings with people to help them with their problems,'' Hatch says he ``learned to love people more than I've ever loved them before. I would not trade those two years for any other time in my life, and that includes my time in the Senate.''

Since then, Hatch has made sure to read the Bible from beginning to end every year, 10 pages every day.

He's seen polls indicating that 17 percent of Americans would not want a Mormon as president. He knows there are bigots out there, though he's surprised there are still so many 40 years after John F. Kennedy became the first Catholic president. But he doesn't mind so much.

``I'm not trying to put myself in the same category,'' he says. ``But if the savior himself came down to earth and decided to run for President of the United States, he'd probably find at least 17 percent against him. But that leaves 83 percent, and I intend to get 51 percent.''

Others suggest his problems go well beyond religion.

``He started very, very late,'' says Richard Bond, former chairman of the Republican National Committee. ``And he doesn't have a niche. He's not the outsider, not the frontrunner, not the heir apparent, not the conservative, not the crusading antiabortion figure, not the moralist. He's kind of the cardigan. He makes you feel good, but that's not enough. I have a great deal of affection and sympathy for Hatch, but nonetheless, this is the jungle of presidential pols, and you can either be the consumer or the menu, and he's getting eaten.''

But Hatch soldiers along, asserting that his experience will win out.

``They know I have guts, they know I have ability,'' he says. ``They know I have more experience than anyone running, including [Vice President Al] Gore and [Bill] Bradley.''

His problem isn't that people don't want him, Hatch says, but that they just don't think he has a chance to win, which ``takes away almost any chance to get their vote, unless you just keep plugging away, which I'm doing.''