Jim DeMint (R-Secede) has announced he will leave the Senate to head the one of the most influential think tanks in the nation. The Heritage Foundation was created in part by uber wingnut trailblazers like Joseph Coors to offset what conservatives of the time saw as Nixon’s pursuit of liberal solutions (Yes, you read that right). The Foundation rose to prominence in the early 80s as one of the pioneering cheerleaders for ‘reducing government,’ by which they meant exactly what the teaparty means today, robbing from the poor and giving to the rich. They’ve done some other, more novel things too:
WSJ — Sen. DeMint said he is taking the Heritage job because he sees it as a vehicle to popularize conservative ideas in a way that connects with a broader public. “This is an urgent time,” the senator said, “because we saw in the last election we were not able to communicate conservative ideas that win elections.” Mr. DeMint, who was a market researcher before he entered politics, said he plans to take the Heritage Foundation’s traditional research plus that of think tanks at the state level and “translate those policy papers into real-life demonstrations of things that work.” He said, “We want to figure out what works at the local and state level” and give those models national attention.
Good luck on that Senator. I’m sure it pays better than the paltry 200k plus you’re paid by the government you hate now and it’s true the Heritage Foundation has actually come up with a meaty idea or two over the years. In fact one of the really big ideas they came up with was first translated ‘into a real life’ demonstration at the ‘state and local level’ by a conservative governor, and worked well enough that it was later codified into law for the entire nation.
It’s now known as Obamacare and, alas, you and your conservative buddies missed the coup of a political lifetime by not crowing about your idea winning out over liberalism and socialized medicine. Instead, you clowns have spent the last four years comparing your own idea, and the president’s grudging acceptance of it, to a tyranny worthy of an up and coming Hitler. So yeah, good luck, because seeing the way your party is headed, you’re gonna need it.
Speaking of which, Gov Nikki Haley will appoint someone as placeholder until a special election in 2014 to serve out DeMint’s term through 2016. Given the nature of the GOP in South Carolina these days and the state’s prideful claim as First to Secede, that person will have to come out as a fire-breathing fundamentalist teaparty nutcase to have prayer in that special midterm primary.
He’s demented.
Aren’t these more appropriately described as dogma tanks rather than think tanks?
A Republican senator resigning, and the airport restroom photos haven’t even been made public yet. Seriously, why is he doing this?
Dean
I prefer propaganda mills, myself.
1). He’s doing it for the money. 2). It’s no fun to be in the minority, especially if they change the filibuster. 3). His replacement (probably Tim Scott) will be exactly the same
Yes, the reason they lost was that they failed to properly explain their positions, like the many positive aspects of self-deportation to Latinos. Yes. They just need to better communicate their repellent ideas, then they will rule forever, just as white male property owner & small businessman Jesus ‘Second Amendment’ Christ predicted. Right.
Reginald Selkirk @ #3:
Only Democrats resign over sex scandals, silly!
That’s right comfy. You know if you frame it right and raise one eybrow in a knowing and cute way, women won’t mind having their human rights stripped away like gangrenous flesh and going through more shaming and more fingers and metals probing around inside to get a month’s script of hormone replacement pills. That makes them happy, if you only you tell them right, kinda like how we guys like it much better if a proctologist smiles kindly when he needlessly feeds a camera up our ass every time we want to buy five condoms.
DeMint leaving this suddenly sounds suspicious to me. Yes, there are good odds the party of God will be able to hold onto the seat but it isn’t a sure thing. That against the GOP’s burning desire to hold as many seats in the senate as possible. And the, IMHO, very weak claim that he could do more good at the Heritage Foundation. Exactly can he do outside the senate that he couldn’t do in office. This is the 21st century and electronic means largely eliminate any need to physical presence.
Sooo … if leaving the seat has a small but substantial risk, and the move has no up side, the question is why is he doing it, and why now?
My mind drifts to the well known reference to politicians being caught in bed with a dead girl, or live boy … but I’m a cynic who doubts it is even possible to have too low an opinion of these people.