Free Republic

"Two of the most influential Republicans in the U.S. Senate these days come from South Carolina, Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham. But Graham’s efforts to work with majority Democrats on some issues has angered many GOP voters in the state, even prompting efforts to censure him."

Here is a list of 2012 candidates. Generally, I am dwelling on the negatives as this is what is going to limit them in their ability to win but will mention any unique positives. Please share your thoughts on these or any other potential candidates. Romney - Romneycare is an albatross. He is a Mormon which impacts appeal. Is popular in Michigan due to his father. Sometimes comes across like a used car salesman. Is probably more conservative than his record and gets a bad rap due to his need to make compromises to get elected in The People's Republic....

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a darling of the Tea Party crowd, credited that movement with blocking Democratic health care reform efforts and predicted the conservative activists behind the movement could ultimately thwart the passage of that bill and others.. "The only reason we don't have national health care right now is you - is the people outside of Washington," DeMint told a gathering of Tea Party activists gathered Wednesday night in Washington for the premiere of a documentary about the movement. "I think we do have a shot at stopping this thing," he said of the health care reform bill...

Could Illinois Senate candidate Patrick Hughes be the next insurgent Republican candidate to get the backing of Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.)? Hughes is slated for his second meeting with DeMint on Thursday (the two also met in September), and DeMint’s Senate Conservative Fund website is currently polling visitors on whom they support in Hughes’s primary with Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.). DeMint has backed former Rep. Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, Marco Rubio in Florida and Chuck DeVore in California, all in the face of establishment favorites. Toomey, of course, soon assumed that mantle when Sen. Arlen Specter switch to the Democratic...

The Obama administration appears to have adopted a more pragmatic approach to the overthrow of the government in Honduras, and Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., played a key role bringing that about. Immediately after the military coup on June 28, which removed President Mel Zelaya from office, the United States called for Zelaya's immediate reinstatement. “We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the democratically elected president there,” Obama said the day after Zelaya's ouster. His reluctance to back the coup was understandable. The United States has a long history of supporting military dictatorships and strong-arm...

For nearly a century the Federal Reserve has operated in the shadows, away from the prying eyes of Congress, journalists and the American people. Created in 1913, the Fed was given enormous responsibility to protect the value of our currency. Yet in the last 96 years the U.S. dollar has lost more than 95% of its purchasing power. The Fed's unprecedented actions over the past year in attempting to stabilize the financial system have now forced it into the spotlight, and caused millions of people around the country to question the opacity of the Fed's financial transactions. While the Fed...

WASHINGTON - Republican lawmakers piled on the Obama administration Tuesday - and Democratic leaders were miffed - over a Web site that reported thousands of jobs nationwide in congressional districts that don't exist. In South Carolina, www.recovery.gov reported $40.7 million in economic-stimulus money had gone to seven nonexistent congressional districts - including District 00 and District 25. South Carolina only has six U.S. House districts, Nos. 1-6. The Web site, the official federal online portal for tracking distributions from the $787 billion stimulus program, compounded the error by saying 46 jobs - 46.4, to be exact - have been "saved...

Sen. Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican known for his efforts to block influence domestic immigration and health-care issues, has scored a foreign-policy coup by helping to compel the Obama administration to shift its stance on strife-ridden Honduras. After demanding for months that deposed Honduran President Mel Zelaya be restored to power, senior State Department officials now say they'll accept the outcome of Nov. 29 elections in the Central American country even if Zelaya doesn't reclaim his post. "We support the elections process there," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Thursday. "We have provided technical assistance. ... These elections will...

Sen. Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican known for his efforts to block influence domestic immigration and health-care issues, has scored a foreign-policy coup by helping to compel the Obama administration to shift its stance on strife-ridden Honduras. After demanding for months that deposed Honduran President Mel Zelaya be restored to power, senior State Department officials now say they'll accept the outcome of Nov. 29 elections in the Central American country even if Zelaya doesn't reclaim his post. "We support the elections process there," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Thursday. "We have provided technical assistance. ... These elections will...

We are proud to endorse Chuck DeVore for U.S. Senate in California. Chuck DeVore is a proven, tested conservative who is gaining momentum. He’s the kind of leader we can count on to stand up for common sense conservative principles in the United States Senate. The Senate Conservatives Fund recently conducted an online poll of our members to see which candidate in California they supported. With 2,688 total votes cast, Chuck DeVore was the clear winner with 90% of the vote. We’ve examined DeVore’s record and interviewed him in person. We are confident that Chuck DeVore is ready to come...

Senator Jim DeMint just sent me the statement below on his support for Doug Hoffman. As one of the real leaders of the conservative movement in this country, DeMint speaks for many of us. I’m delighted he is, as he consistently does, putting principle over party in this case. Senator DeMint says: “Too often, we’re told that Republicans have to be like Democrats to be competitive in states like New York, Pennsylvania and Florida. But the truth is voters don’t want to be forced to pick between two liberals; they want a real choice. If voters want to give Washington...

No You Can’t by: Allie Winegar Duzett, October 13, 2009 U. S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Car.) was given the Americans for Prosperity (AFP) George Washington Award on October 3 at the 2009 Defending the American Dream Summit for his outstanding work to promote American freedom in the United States Senate. Sen. DeMint’s acceptance speech focused largely on victory for American freedom, and how Americans can make it happen. “We know in this room that when the government says ‘yes we can,’ we need to stand up and say ‘no, you can’t,’” he began, with enthusiastic audience support. He continued...

COLUMBIA, S.C. U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint launched a bid for a second term Monday with no GOP primary opponent, $2.8 million in hand and a growing national profile. But he'll likely need the cash since his profile has grown as he famously said Republicans can make the national health care overhaul debate a Waterloo for President Barack Obama.

After visiting Tegucigalpa last week and meeting with a cross section of leaders from Honduras's government, business community, and civil society, I can report there is no chaos there. There is, however, chaos to spare in the Obama administration's policy toward our poor and loyal allies in Honduras. In a day packed with meetings, we met only one person in Honduras who opposed Mr. Zelaya's ouster, who wishes his return, and who mystifyingly rejects the legitimacy of the November elections: U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens.

 According to Congressional travel records, House and Senate members spent 6,910 days on "official travel" overseas in the first three-quarters of 2009, spending an estimated $9.4 million. They hit the obvious-Iraq and Afghanistan-but also those bastions of American security concern Scotland, Morocco, Denmark and Sweden.  But when Sen. Jim DeMint tried to visit Honduras, Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry forbade an official trip, cutting off funds for the flight-an unprecedented step for a committee chairman. Sen. Kerry then tried to exchange permission for the trip for the release of DeMint's hold on two administration appointees - a bribe the...

Congress: Banana republic politics aren't just confined to Honduras these days. On Thursday, Sen. John Kerry tried to halt Sen. Jim DeMint's trip there in a tit-for-tat slap. And he thinks it's Hondurans who need dialogue? Kerry's unprecedented bid to keep South Carolina's Republican senator out of Honduras shows how much spite there is in the party line of Democrats. The senior senator from Massachusetts leads the Foreign Relations Committee and seems to agree with the current nonsense that Honduras' legal ouster of its rogue president was a "coup" that deserves "punishment." DeMint disagrees, as do many others. He sought...

If you watch C-Span for a while, you're sure to hear a politician or pundit criticizing some idea by comparing it to "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." It's a vivid illustration of the short-sightedness and futility of so much of what Washington does superficially to improve failed programs. In Washington today, however, we are witnessing an unprecedented extension of the Titanic analogy: Both parties and both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue are focused on rearranging our deck chairs while there is still time to steer around the iceberg, if only someone would grab the wheel. This week, the Associated...

Delta smelts: Preferred over humans. Environmentalism: Sen. Dianne Feinstein votes to deny water to California's drought-stricken San Joaquin Valley. Farmers, families and food are being held hostage to an endangered fish called the delta smelt.There was a time when the San Joaquin Valley was the most productive agricultural region in the world. It was a large part of what made the Golden State golden.Now it's a place where farmers no longer farm, but instead line up at food banks to feed the families of those who once fed the rest of the country and a good chunk of the...

Remember "Baghdad Bob," the Iraqi Information Minister Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf? Even with Iraqi forces in a full rout and American Marines just blocks away Baghdad Bob would completely deny the presence of U.S. troops in the Iraqi capitol. Watching MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," on September 24 was reminiscent of Baghdad's Bob's press conferences. Olbermann asked Newsweek's Jonathan Alter, also an MSNBC political analyst, how "the GOP" would convince the public that the health care system "is not really in crisis" and that it does not need to be a priority compared to Afghanistan. Turning right to page three of...

Here is video of South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint talking with Fox News' Brian Wilson today from the Capitol in Washington, D.C., where the 9/12 "Taxpayers March on Washington was taking place. Wilson characterized the crowd as being "tens of thousands," but when DeMint began speaking, he immediately corrected Wilson by saying there were "hundreds of thousands" of people in attendance. DeMint said the huge crowd present were "average Americans" who had come to Washington to tell their Government they "want their country back." He said they are "tired of being lectured to," and they "want to be listened to."...

Senator Jim Demint releases a statement on President Obama’s speach: Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, made the following statement: “Tonight’s speech was a perfect example of why most Americans oppose President Obama’s health plan. He continues to insist a government takeover of health care is the only option, while providing no proof it will lower costs or improve care, and he belittles the millions of informed Americans who oppose his plan. In short, his message tonight was: Be quiet America, Washington knows best.“ “The bill that President Obama outlined tonight was the...

Here is video of Sen. Jim DeMint last night telling Greta Van Susteren that it is time for President Obama to "defend his bill" and stop speaking in "generalities." He also said Gov. Sarah Palin is absolutely correct on what she has said about Obama's Health Care Plan, and added that no one knows what "this monster will become" if ObamaCare is passed. DeMint said no artificial deadlines should be set on when a vote is taken on Health Care. He praised Americans for standing up and speaking out against Government control of Health Care. . . . (VIDEO)

SPARTANBURG, S.C. — Senator Jim DeMint, the South Carolina Republican who predicted that President Obama’s effort to overhaul the health care system would become his “Waterloo,” is doing his best to make that happen. Taking questions from a friendly crowd of 500 people here the other day, Mr. DeMint reinforced their worst fears about health care in particular and the government in general. When one man said the major House bill on health care would give the government electronic access to bank accounts, Mr. DeMint told him that the bill was never about health care. “This is about more government...

U.S. Senator Jim DeMint is the one who stated several weeks ago that ObamaCare could be Barack's "Waterloo". It does seem that his prediction is coming true. This article spotlights DeMint's huge town hall meeting in Myrtle Beach including a video of his intro speech and all 3 local news coverage videos. Also, there's a small photo gallery. I was there. This Senator is developing a strong following for his unwavering conservative stands. Jim DeMint Speaks to Packed House in Myrtle Beach

U.S. Senator Jim DeMint is the one who stated several weeks ago that ObamaCare could be Barack's "Waterloo". It does seem that his prediction is coming true. This article spotlights DeMint's huge town hall meeting in Myrtle Beach including a video of his intro speech and all 3 local news coverage videos. Also, there's a small photo gallery. I was there. This Senator is developing a strong following for his unwavering conservative stands. Jim DeMint Speaks to Packed House in Myrtle Beach

Here's another fun detail from last night's Americans For Prosperity teletown hall, which featured Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). Both politicians said that if a health care bill passes, it should be actively fought and resisted through a collective effort of conservative governors. A caller asked DeMint what the states could do in order to stop unconstitutional action by the federal government on health care. DeMint replied, "I think the key to pushing back against the federal government is some governors and state legislators who champion individual freedom." DeMint said he would love to see states...

Among the accusations the White House and the left have leveled at opponents of President Barack Obama’s health care plan is that they falsely assert that the plan would force tax payers to fund abortions. Obama himself said recently that those who raised the abortion concern were “bearing false witness.” However, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., explained tele-town hall meeting on Aug. 20 how ObamaCare could force American taxpayers to pay for abortions. While there is no language in the House bill specifically allocating funds for abortions, it delegates the authority to determine what is covered to the administration’s Department of...

Sen. Jim DeMint says President Obama’s plan to set up a quasi-government cooperative at every state level to compete with individual insurance companies makes “absolutely no sense” and is a “fairly elaborate hoax.” Appearing on Fox News’ “Your World with Neil Cavuto” Monday, DeMint, author of “Saving Freedom: We Can Stop America's Slide into Socialism,” said whatever the government calls its public option plan to reform healthcare, it essentially is more government control. “Whatever they call it, this is a government takeover,” the South Carolina Republican said. “They may try to call it a co-op, they can call it a...

MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WMBF) - U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint spoke to a packed house Wednesday during a town hall meeting to discuss the Obama administration's health care plan, as well as his own Freedom Plan. Doors opened at 11 a.m. at Rioz Brazilian Steakhouse at 2920 Hollywood Dr. in Myrtle Beach as a line snaked through the restaurant parking lot. Hundreds of people packed into the standing room only event, while others - supporters and protesters alike - withstood the sun and heat outside. DeMint (R-SC) kicked things off by thanking each person that showed up to the event, applauding...

David Cameron was fighting last night to prevent the Tories again being labelled the 'nasty party' after one of his Euro MPs denounced the National Health Service. The Tory leader slapped down Daniel Hannan after he went on U.S. television to brand the NHS a '60-year failure' that he 'wouldn't wish on anybody'. Hannan joined forces with U.S. critics opposed to Barack Obama's healthcare reforms. They have described the British system as evil, Orwellian and a breeding ground for terrorists. Mr Hannan said: 'I find it incredible that a free people living in a country dedicated and founded in the...

Soft-spoken, slight of physical stature and not even the senior senator in his state, Jim DeMint might not seem the most likely choice as a one-man Obama wrecking crew. Yet the first-term S.C. Republican has quickly emerged as a leading voice against President Obama's bid to overhaul health care with new or expanded federal programs. DeMint, rated across the political spectrum as one of the most conservative senators, has used his background as a former marketing firm owner to boil down the health care debate into pithy phrases. In the past month, he has vowed to make health care Obama's...

Vocal S.C. senator has become conservatives’ point man. BY JAMES ROSEN WASHINGTON — Soft-spoken, slight of physical stature and not even the senior senator in his own state, Jim DeMint isn’t the most likely choice to fill the role of one-man Obama wrecking crew. Yet the first-term S.C. Republican quickly has emerged as a leading voice of opposition to President Obama’s bid to overhaul the U.S. health care system with new or expanded federal government programs. . . . . . “This is a battle I’ve been waiting for and hoping for, for years,” DeMint told McClatchy newspapers. “We’ve got...

It’s good to see that Nancy Pelosi is out and about in her district so soon after leaving on a jet plane (don’t know when she’ll be back again) for more welcoming climes in the “City By The Bay.” Sadly, she can’t seem to accept that the majority of Americans outside of ‘Frisco hold the same opinion of her that most do for a really pushy panhandler, reeking of “Two-Buck Chuck” (a very popular wine in California, I’m told) and with a demanding grimace on his face to go along with his open palm. …But let’s leave the matter of...

Here is video of Sen. Jim DeMint taking on Democrat Rep. Charles Rangel on the issue of Government Health Care. They appeared today on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. DeMint makes a strong case against the Democrats' plan, and Rangel dodged a direct question on the statement by Barney Frank that reveals the "Public option" is a trojan horse to eventually move to total Government-controlled Health Care. . . . . . (Watch Video)

**Update** Jim DeMint on FNS calls it stupidity coming from Washington and our children will have to pay for this, McCain promises to crush the Program, now Clair McCaskill says no more money (Video)

Ohio Senator George Voinovich says that the GOP is "being taken over by southerners," the Columbus Dispatch reports. In an interview with with the paper, Voinovich said shrinking demographics and southern senators are alienating his conservative constituents. He cites Republican Senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn as the GOP's biggest problem. "We got too many Jim DeMints (R-S.C.) and Tom Coburns (R-Ok.). It's the southerners. They get on TV and go 'errrr, errrrr.' People hear them and say, 'These people, they're southerners. The party's being taken over by southerners. What they hell they got to do with Ohio?'," Voinovich said....

Big Jim? Reddest of red-state Republicans? A man who once said he wouldn’t mind if the Democrats held 70 seats in the Senate so long as the 30 GOP seats were occupied by small-government conservatives? That Jim DeMint? An anti-Birther? On Monday, however, the South Carolina Republican found himself defending Barack Obama from the fringier elements of his own political party: the conspiracy theorists who insist the president was not born in the United States. “I may have disagreements with [the president] on issues,” DeMint told the Huffington Post. “But he is my president, he deserves our respect, and we...

Here is video of Sen. Jim DeMint last night on Greta Van Susteren responding to Vice-President Joe Biden's recent question to critics of the Administration, "What would they do?" As Ed Morrissey writes, Biden and Obama should have been asking that question back in February BEFORE they passed the $787 Billion Stimulus Plan. DeMint lays out what Republicans had said they would do back in February and since. The truth is that Biden and Democrats do not want to hear what critics would do. They are focused on imposing their remake of American society into a version of European-style socialism....

We have our new Joe the Plumber, Jim DeMint of South Carolina who is giving the Dems fits, so the Rambo Deadfish Emanuel attack dogs are now going after him...

Shameless Matt Lauer try to accuse DeMint of making it personal to President Obama...Yeah NBC never went after Bush personally did they...

In many ways, our health care system is broken. Even people satisfied with their own care are nervous about losing it, concerned about rising costs, and frustrated by the failure of government to bring about genuine reform. But the reason Congress has so far been unable to fix our health care problems is that Congress is too busy creating the problems in the first place. That’s why the current proposals emanating from the White House and congressional Democrats won’t work either. Those proposals would hand over the most personal, private undertaking of our lives — health care — to the...

A Republican senator unhappy with U.S. policy on Honduras delayed on Tuesday a committee vote to confirm the nominee to head the State Department's bureau of western hemisphere affairs. Conservative Senator Jim DeMint, who has expressed concern over Washington's call for ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to be reinstated, invoked his right to ask the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to postpone voting to confirm Arturo Valenzuela, currently a professor at Georgetown University, to be assistant secretary of state. DeMint also asked for a delay in confirming Thomas Shannon as U.S. ambassador to Brazil. Shannon currently holds the assistant secretary's post....

"Anytime a President of the United States goes after a freshman Senator, he's losing his grip"-DeMint

Our government who gave us TARP, the stimulus bill full of earmarks, Cap and Trade, and now is trying to ram Obamacare down our throats with the promises of savings and more savings, shows their budget prowess by buying ham at $1.50 a pound, when it could have been bought for $0.79 a pound. Further proof of the ability of Obama’s government run programs ability to be efficient. Der Fuhrer, excuse me, Dear Leader, has been telling more lies about the government take over and the cost. Senator DeMint has demonstrated that obamacare will be almost a trillion dollars more...

In his first decade in Congress, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) sought to convert his colleagues to his conservative beliefs through "gentle persuasion" and the sort of go-along-to-get-along collegiality that dominates Capitol Hill. No more. "I've found no one listens," DeMint said of his old approach during a recent interview with the Fix as part of our "Rising" series. "My role in the Senate is to come up with the right ideas and take them directly to the American people." The leading edge of the more combative DeMint can be found in his new book -- titled "Saving Freedom" -- in...

The growing public skepticism toward President Obama’s federal takeover of American health care is a welcome reminder of the wisdom and responsibility of the American people. In a certain sense, the collapsing support for the Democrats’ scheme was inevitable. After all, the initial “support” was always based on the president’s gauzy aspirations rather than on the ghastly details of 800-page legislation written by a Star Wars cantina of corporate lobbyists and liberal committee chairmen. The fact of the matter is that there never was a real base of support for the plan the president and his party favor. The American...

Or so claims Newt Gingrich about Sen. Jim DeMint's new book, "Saving Freedom: We can stop America's slide into socialism." We'll see. I bought the book a few days back, but then this Sanford and Jacko thing one-two'ed me into a state of delirious punch-drunkeness and I just stumbled from screen to screen until I was down for the count. (Wow, that sentence didn't make a lick of sense. You'd think I was offering some kind of explanation about my love of the Appalachian Trail.) On Friday July 3, the DeMinted one will be in Chucktown to sign copies of...

South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, armed with his new book, Saving Freedom, and a Toby Keith-like song, is hitting the nation on a bus wrapped in patriotic colors to pitch his claim that the administration and congressional Democrats are pushing the nation into socialism. "We've got to stop the slide to socialism," he tells Whispers. "Freedom is dissolving. We don't even teach what it is anymore." Republican DeMint is a leading conservative in Washington, an outspoken critic of the recent wave of government bailouts and growing deficits. And his new book aims to highlight his concerns and ways to return...

U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint will be in Charleston on July 3 as part of a book signing tour for Saving Freedom, which was released on Monday. “Our government has never been further from the principles of freedom,” said the South Carolina Republican. “Out-of-control government spending and unprecedented power grabbing is draining the economic and political will of freedom loving citizens and increasing the dependency of generations to come. “Across the nation socialistic policies have incrementally worked their way into all areas of American life. But there is still hope for the cause of freedom. It starts with understanding the difference...