Jim DeMint has Had Enough with Republicans
Well this is depressing. Marc Thiessen has a fascinating column in the Washington Post about why Sen. Jim DeMint is not endorsing anyone for president.
Note that DeMint leaves himself a little wiggle room. When asked why, he said, “As we get into next year, if we have two at the top and one is clearly the conservative and one’s not . . . I might look at it again. But my commitment right now is to stay out of it.”
The reason he is staying out, DeMint said, is that “I’ve got to keep my focus on electing conservatives to the Senate who are going to come in here and help us change the spending culture and help our new president turn the country around.” The tipping point for DeMint came last week, when he watched 32 of his Republican colleagues vote with Democrats to kill an amendment offered by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) to cut $1 billion from the Rural Development Agency, while 11 Republicans voted with Democrats against eliminating a paltry $6 million in funding for the Small Community Air Service Development Program. “I’ve realized over the last week, as I’ve seen how some of the votes were cast in the Senate, [that] we had some Republicans who were going to resist any cuts in programs.”
Thirty-two Republicans didn't even have the courage to cut $1 billion from the RDA? And 11 didn't have the courage to cut $6 million? We are doomed.
And if we don't have enough people in the House and Senate to do whatever they can to cut the size and scope of government, will it matter who the president is?
The column ends by explaining that DeMint has endorsed two candidates -- Josh Mandel of Ohio and Ted Cruz of Texas. There will be more:
"I know we can change the Senate . . . . Five or eight more like . . . [Marco Rubio, Pat Toomey and Rand Paul] and a Republican president, we can turn our country around . . . . It is really now or never for our country. We’re not going to get another bite at this apple. ”
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Dec '10
Re: Jim DeMint has Had Enough with Republicans
Make a list and in 2012 we will check it twice. From the light-bulb vote, to the RDA, to whatever is next. We will keep throwing out big government Republicans till we get what we need.
Apr '11
Re: Jim DeMint has Had Enough with Republicans
Molly, I have been thinking these very same thoughts for a while, that how much does the presidency really matter other than possibly to add legitimacy to your agenda. We are now immersed in a culture that just can't say no to anymore spending and If this be the case we are doomed regardless of what individual resides in the White House.
I realize the president has executive powers and can create the next czar out of thin air but most of the harm that was, is and is to come, emerges from the congress first and foremost.
Feb '11
Re: Jim DeMint has Had Enough with Republicans
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.:
Thirty-two Republicans didn't even have the courage to cut $1 billion from the RDA? And 11 didn't have the courage to cut $6 million? We are doomed.
And if we don't have enough people in the House and Senate to do whatever they can to cut the size and scope of government, will it matter who the president is?
DeMint is absolutely right. The circus of the presidential race obscures the equally desperate need to radically alter Congress. The record of the Republican Congresses under Bush 43 was nothing short of reprehensible. They might as well have been Democratic. Far too many of the current Republicans in the House and Senate are spineless cowards. They need to be booted onto the unemployment rolls.
Aug '10
Re: Jim DeMint has Had Enough with Republicans
The tide of spending in Washington marches inexorably onward, ever onward.
Until we term limit these clowns there is simply no hope of steming the red tide.
Sep '10
Re: Jim DeMint has Had Enough with Republicans
The system of government of the United States was designed to make it very difficult to pull off a national anything unless a very clear majority of the citizenry wanted it. The flipside of this divided government is that its devilishly difficult to dismantle the entitlement state for the same reason.
Apr '11
Re: Jim DeMint has Had Enough with Republicans
Come on, Ron Paul would have it all dismantled in the first 100 days. He told me so on Cris Wallaces' Fox News Sunday
Jun '10
Re: Jim DeMint has Had Enough with Republicans
The proper maintenance of a republic requires one of two conditions:
A. Government officials who are elected on the basis of their virtue and wisdom.
OR
B. A fully engaged and informed body politic who jealously defend their prerogatives as self-reliant and autonomous citizens.
We currently have neither. Our elected officials have become essentially an oligarchy. Decisions are made based solely on what will keep them in office and damn larger consequences. The other deficiency is that the American body politic has traded self-reliance for dependency. Essentially, we have allowed the government (to paraphrase Tocqueville) to bribe us with our own money. I can only conclude that the end of our republican experiment in government draws nigh. It was a nice ride while it lasted.
Sep '10
Re: Jim DeMint has Had Enough with Republicans
....Especially when its got inbuilt mechanisms to ratchet up spending each and every year like Ras al Ghoul aboard the Gotham train in Batman Begins. This is one instance where not only don't we want the trains running on time, we don't want them running at all.
If I understand Mollie's link to Andrew Ferguson's NYT review of Newt's corpus, then Newt is more than a myth, Mr. Wayne, he's a legend.
Jan '11
Re: Jim DeMint has Had Enough with Republicans
'Well if Mitt Romney wins and we have a GOP House & Senate, they can hold his feet to the fire and keep him on the sraight & narrow'...
Right!! Sure...
Dec '10
Re: Jim DeMint has Had Enough with Republicans
And this is why the founders designed a limited government. All the problems we have with government today were foreseeable. They did their best to limit the national government to specific functions on which it would be impossible to spend the nation to penury, but from the first congress on our government has simply ignored the constitution to our peril. The first congress gave us both the first "sin tax" and the first national bank. Even as tightly constrained as the Federalists thought the government was, the Anti-Federalists were right that no parchment barrier can restrain men.
Oct '10
Re: Jim DeMint has Had Enough with Republicans
sevenfold: Molly, I have been thinking these very same thoughts for a while, that how much does the presidency really matter other than possibly to add legitimacy to your agenda. We are now immersed in a culture that just can't say no to anymore spending and If this be the case we are doomed regardless of what individual resides in the White House.
I realize the president has executive powers and can create the next czar out of thin air but most of the harm that was, is and is to come, emerges from the congress first and foremost.
The veto power makes the presidency immensely powerful. Newt Gingrich learned this early in his failed tenure as Speaker of the House. We can pretty much forget about any sort of transformational change in the United States government if Obama has a second term in office. It's possible that we're already beyond recovery given Obama's health care system, but a second term would seal the deal, I think.
Apr '11
Re: Jim DeMint has Had Enough with Republicans
Many of our Republican leaders still suffer from Rino fever. It matters little that they care more about their very transitory political interests than the well being of their countrymen. I suspect God will brutally bring them back to reality.
Mar '11
Re: Jim DeMint has Had Enough with Republicans
Two reactions here.
1) I don't always agree with Jim DeMint, but I am certainly with him that our options are lackluster and have been equally candid in voicing my opinion about it.
2) I want everyone to remember DeMint's unnecessarily public cold shoulder next time the charge gets thrown around that its folks in the "center-right" who are the cause of division within the party. It appears that there are elements at both ends who are more willing to rebuke the other than stand together in firm opposition to the Obama campaign.
Aug '10
Re: Jim DeMint has Had Enough with Republicans
Frozen Chosen: The tide of spending in Washington marches inexorably onward, ever onward.
Until we term limit these clowns there is simply no hope of steming the red tide. · Nov 7 at 7:31am
Amen, brother.
Oct '11
Re: Jim DeMint has Had Enough with Republicans
I think one of the big problems with cutting entitlement spending is the immediacy of effects. If you cut entitlements, the recipients will feel it right away in benefit reductions, but there's a good chance that the taxpayers won't feel anything until later down the road, and because you can't trace it, most taxpayers won't know it. So the people receiving the benefits seem to have more of a stake than the taxpayers, for whom it's more likely to be a thumbs up/down issue.
Also, it's only ever an entitlement when the other guy receives it; when you do, it's property or "getting my tax dollars back". I can't seem to find it, but NRO had a survey showing that, while most Americans want programs cut, the only program that had a majority of support was international aid.
Which leads me to the QuickerBrownFox Rule of Property: if you want otherwise sensible conservatives to support a tax or regulation (Social Security, Medicare, patent regulation), call it a property right (investment, contribution, intellectual property, respectively). The QuickerBrownFox Rule of National Security has a similar mechanism.
May '10
Re: Jim DeMint has Had Enough with Republicans
Bwa, ha, ha! My evil plan to nominate an uninspiring presidential candidate bears fruit! Now, attention is shifted to where it most belongs, the senate races!
(http://ricochet.com/member-feed/Plutocrat-Guy-Why-I-Quashed-the-Christie-Candidacy-and-Why-My-Evil-Plan-Is-Right) (Bummer, it won't let me embed the URL.)
Oct '11
Re: Jim DeMint has Had Enough with Republicans
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.:
The reason he is staying out, DeMint said, is that “I’ve got to keep my focus on electing conservatives to the Senate who are going to come in here and help us change the spending culture and help our new president turn the country around.”
Nothing depressing about this strategy at all! When Jim DeMint stays 'focused,' he accomplishes things like ... Marco Rubio's election.
May '10
Re: Jim DeMint has Had Enough with Republicans
This statement by DeMint is also consistent with expecting Romney to pick him for VP, but wanting that selection to look like an arm's-length transaction...
Oct '10
Re: Jim DeMint has Had Enough with Republicans
Jeff Flake for Senate.
Apr '11
Re: Jim DeMint has Had Enough with Republicans
His 2008 Romney endorsement was a long term investment?
I think it's more that too many conservatives buy Ted Kennedy's attacks on Mitt, so DeMint is keeping his distance in order to be a better conduit for TEA Party congressional efforts.
It's certainly not pessimistic;in 2008, he saw a potential disaster, so endorsed Romney. This time, he has not felt the need to do so, emphasizing the improved confidence we can have in the field this cycle. Unless you think that Romney has gotten worse since 2008.