I hadn’t heard people speak of Jim DeMint for President before it was brought up by Fox News, but I like the idea. He has solid convinctions and courage.
During the 2010 midterm election cycle he was interviewed by Mark Levin, and I gained respect for him there. Mark was asking him about his PAC, the Senate Conservatives Fund. He has been using it to give money to conservatives running for the Senate, and in some cases has backed challengers to incumbents. He acknowledged that this has made him unpopular on Capitol Hill, but I love it that he’s doing this. He helped Pat Toomey unseat closet Democrat Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania, and Mike Lee unseat liberal Republican Bob Bennett in conservative Utah. It takes courage for a senator to buck the establishment of his own party like that – it cuts off his chances for influential leadership posts. But courage is exactly what I look for in a 2012 challenger to Obama. Nothing less will do.
Bret Baier interviewed him on November 9 as part of Fox News’ “12 in 2012” special on possible Republican candidates for president. Here’s what DeMint said when Bret asked him whether or not he was going to run for president:
“I know exactly what needs to be done, and I know that I probably have the management and leadership skills to do it. But it’s going to be a painful job for the next president if they do it right.
“Taking apart this huge bureaucracy, fighting the government unions, doing the things that have to be done to cut spending and cut the size of the federal government and restore fiscal sanity. It’s going to be very unpopular up here. Just as I found in my own party.
“I want to look at the group of candidates who are standing up and telling the truth, and I’d hope it’s somebody other than me.”
For me, I could get excited about a Jim DeMint candidacy. I’m not sure I understand why Michele Bachmann excites me more, but she does. She seems to me to have such cool composure under fire. But DeMint, at least right now, is a close second in my book.
