Republicans cleaning house?: Jim Demint leaves the Senate
Jim DeMint (R-SC) has quit the Senate with two years left on his term.
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Senator Jim DeMint, the conservative Republican from South Carolina who helped incite the Tea Party movement, will leave the Senate to become president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group.
Senator Jim DeMint, speaking at a Tea Party convention in his home state of South Carolina last year, has announced that he will leave the Senate to lead a conservative group.
“It’s been an honor to serve the people of South Carolina in United States Senate for the past eight years,” said Mr. DeMint in a statement. “But now it’s time for me to pass the torch to someone else and take on a new role in the fight for America’s future.
He's probably the politician most associated with the Tea Party. I don't think being head of Heritage gives you more power than being a Senator. So why did he do this?
Well in the House, John Boehner just demoted a couple of guys associated with the Tea Party.
The Tea Party is being blamed with losing the Republicans several safe seats in the Senate.
So did someone push DeMint or did he do this on his own?
I suspect that DeMint realizes the Republicans are going to lose this deficit fight and he wants to keep his hands ideologically clean.
I wonder if this means a run in 2016? Possibly as a third party candidate.
Re: Republicans cleaning house?: Jim Demint leaves the Senate
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Originally Posted by Droid101
More importantly, who will replace him? Will the Democrats gain another senate seat?
It is South Carolina so I doubt it. But still!
The Republican governor gets to appointment a replacement. Then there's a special election in 2016. Both SC senators will be up for re-election in 2016.
Re: Republicans cleaning house?: Jim Demint leaves the Senate
Quote:
Originally Posted by KevinNYC
Jim DeMint (R-SC) has quit the Senate with two years left on his term.
He's probably the politician most associated with the Tea Party. I don't think being head of Heritage gives you more power than being a Senator. So why did he do this?
Well in the House, John Boehner just demoted a couple of guys associated with the Tea Party.
The Tea Party is being blamed with losing the Republicans several safe seats in the Senate.
So did someone push DeMint or did he do this on his own?
I suspect that DeMint realizes the Republicans are going to lose this deficit fight and he wants to keep his hands ideologically clean.
I wonder if this means a run in 2016? Possibly as a third party candidate.
I think it does. He will be spending time and money buying the votes of his former colleagues and holding them accountable to the hijackers of the GOP
Unlike in the last election cycle, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina is maintaining a low profile as he appears to fulfill a promise to Senate Republican leaders that he won't oppose any sitting GOP senators through his Senate Conservatives Fund.
But Senate Republican aides and campaign-finance experts say DeMint has reneged on that promise by using a stealth funding mechanism to target Sen. Dick Lugar, an Indiana Republican who's been in office since 1977 but now is facing a stiff tea party-backed primary challenge.
Team DeMint, the South Carolina Republican's campaign political action committee, last month transferred $500,000 to Club for Growth, an influential free market advocacy group based in Washington with longstanding close ties to DeMint.
Club for Growth last week started running a hard-hitting TV ad in Indiana, accusing Lugar of having backed tax increases, along with federal bailouts of Wall Street bankers and mortgage giant Fannie Mae.
Re: Republicans cleaning house?: Jim Demint leaves the Senate
This does feel like a housecleaning. If you go back to 2010, the Republicans should hold the majority in Senate. But the Tea Party Senate candidates got beat easily.
Also Dick Armey just let Freedomworks, the fake grassroots that does the organizing for biggest Tea Party rallies. He pocketed $8 million in greenbacks in money on the way out the door. The greenbacks had an artificial, astro-turfy color to them.
Republicans cleaning house?: Jim Demint leaves the Senate
