Demint for president?

By Charles Sowell  

JUNE 1, 2011 8:29 a.m. (4)

A tea party driven effort to draft South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint to run for president has sprung up in at least 35 states since January, organizers say, despite the senator’s famous reluctance to seek higher political office.

DeMint told The Hill he is considering making a bid for the GOP nomination and that he has talked with his wife and will pray about it out of respect for his supporters around the nation.

DeMint did not return a phone call from The Journal, but Wesley Denton, his communications director, "Senator DeMint is focused on stopping the reckless spending in Washington, and helping to elect more principled conservative leaders to join the fight in the U.S. Senate. He is also working with conservative leaders in South Carolina and other early primary states to challenge the presidential candidates to take bold stands on issues like a balanced budget amendment that will impact the future of our country for generations to come.”

Dave Woodard, political science professor at Clemson and a long-time friend of the senator, doesn’t see DeMint running.

“It is too late in the political cycle for this to take off for 2012,” Woodard said. “I mean he’d have to raise a billion dollars to run for president this time and, as much as I think Jim would be a great president, I just don’t see that happening at this point.”

Woodard does, however, see DeMint as a strong potential candidate in the 2016 election.

Angela Toft, a Californian who is chairwoman of the draft DeMint movement, is well aware of the problems in convincing the senator to run.

“He doesn’t want to run, we know that, but we hope to be able to convince him that the country needs his kind of conservative leadership since we have such a weak field of potential GOP nominees,” she said. “Were the right person to come forward, however, I’m sure the senator and the rest of us would fall into line behind them.”

Her organization has about 4,700 active members nationwide, Toft said.

“I first became aware of Sen. DeMint during the 2010 election cycle when he was so instrumental in raising funds for tea party candidates around the country,” she said.

After that election political observers saw the senator as the potential head of a tea party wing of the Republican Party in the U.S. Senate. He could have played a crucial role in that closely divided body.

But that didn’t come to pass.

State political director of the draft DeMint group, Javan Browder, said there are plans for a rally on June 18 – most likely at Falls Park in downtown Greenville.

“Conservatives and tea party members are really excited by the prospect, however remote, that Sen. DeMint could come out and make a run,” he said.

“The current GOP field doesn’t excite conservatives and we hope to convince the senator to make a run in 2012.”

As popular as DeMint is among tea party partisans and social and fiscal conservatives it is discontent with the current GOP field that is mainly driving the draft DeMint movement, insiders with Conservatives4DeMint say.

Toft, who has been active in GOP politics since the Reagan era, said the current field leaves members of the tea party and hard-line conservatives cold.

“Jim is both a social and fiscal conservative,” Browder said. “He’s the best of both worlds so far as we are concerned.”

Be that as it may, Woodard said many in Republican circles are not thrilled with any of the GOP prospects for president in the current field.

“But being a potential candidate is very different than actually running,” he said. “When you’re a potential candidate (for example) the press is very nice to you. When you actually step up and run, then things get nasty very quickly.

“The press would bring up his lack of foreign policy experience, the fact that he’s a poor speaker… all kinds of things change once an announcement is made.”

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Karen  - DeMint is our next Reagan   |2011-06-01 04:59:13 Poor speaker? The only ones who think that are the ones who have never heard him speak or been part of a standing ovation that just goes on forever. I've heard him several time, but the latest was at the SC GOP convention where we elected our new GOP chair for the state. Demint was one of the speakers. He got the longest standing ovation of any of the speakers. The enthusiasm for him rocked the building. Reply

Preston  - poor speaker?   |2011-06-01 05:13:37 Dr. Woodward, you need to get out more. When is the last time you heard the senator speak? Everywhere he speaks, he fires the crowd up more than anybody. Reply

Gerri McDaniel  - DeMint 2012 for a win   |2011-06-01 09:42:16 For all the folks reading this blog I was quite surprised to see it written Jim DeMint is a poor speaker. I would would like to say to that "What planet are you from"? Never have a I seen a man who can rally the crowd as much as Jim DeMint. Not only do he practice what he preaches but he walks the walk of a true Conservative who loves his State and his Country. The time is now for Senator DeMint to step up to the plate and lead this Country back to where our founding fathers had of intended it to be. We need a true leader that we can stand behind and fight the socialist who are trying to ruin this Country! Senator Jim DeMint 2012 !!! Reply

Javan Browder  - Draft Jim DeMint 2012!!   |2011-06-02 21:20:27 Karen, Preston and Gerri, I could not agree with you more! I was in Washiton on 9-12-2009 when we electrified the million and a half of us who where there with his Waterloo speech! For anyone who is interested in helping us draft him to run please contact me @javanjorie@yahoo.com and join Campaign to Draft Jim DeMint! We are holding a rally in Greenville June 18th! Reply

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