Well, this is just weird. Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina is resigning from the Senate in January to take the top spot at the Heritage Foundation. Governor Nikki Haley will select his replacement and there will be a special election in 2014 for the right to serve out the last two years of DeMint’s term. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina will also be on the ballot in 2014, but he’ll be running for a full six-year term. I’ll let someone who knows Palmetto State politics better than me start the speculation about who Gov. Haley will tap.
I can kind of see why Sen. DeMint would prefer the job at Heritage to the one he has, especially since he had already pledged not to run for a third-term. It is much harder for me to understand why Heritage wants him. I thought they fancied themselves the preeminent right-wing thought center, not a backwater for Tea Party cast-outs. Handing the keys of the foundation over to a nutcase like Jim DeMint is highly irresponsible and signals a coming break with the Washington Establishment, as the GOP leadership considers how to pivot for the 2016 presidential campaign.
DeMint spent his time in the Senate knocking heads with the party leadership and actively recruiting and supporting alternate candidates who frequently wound up costing the party Senate seats. I wouldn’t be surprised if part of DeMint’s motivation in resigning is that he’s burned too many bridges with his colleagues and he doesn’t like going to work in a hostile workplace. If I am not mistaken, he is turning down an opportunity to be the ranking member on the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. That could have translated to a nice chairmanship after the 2014 midterms. As an aside, I expect that John Thune of South Dakota will land the spot in DeMint’s stead.
In any case, I am glad to see DeMint leave the Senate. He’s an irredeemable bastard. I just hope Haley doesn’t make Joe “You Lie” Wilson his replacement.
