Editor’s note: The Washington Examiner held an editorial board meeting with Senator Jim DeMint today. Below is part two of the interview.
Q: Now you said a few things that seem to suggest you’re finally able to shine some light on these issues. Has there been a serious culture change in the Senate since the 2010 election, would you say? And looking forward to the upcoming election, there seem to be several Jim DeMint-type or, you know potential candidates out there – I don’t want to use the word ‘Tea Party’ because that seems like a 2010 term – but what’s the, what kind of future do you see for conservatism in the U.S. Senate?
DeMint: Well, I think you’ve got a lot of people, probably the majority of the Senate, who want to go back to the good old days. They’re afraid to say it, but boy, most of them would like to bring back earmarks. But there is such a public disdain now and awareness of it that they’re afraid to do it, at least openly.
While the whole mindset has not changed within the Senate, the activity has. We are talking more about the debt and things like balancing the budget. Everything that comes up with more spending now has some bumps. And it’s not just me this year. It’s [Kentucky Senator] Rand Paul, it’s [Utah Senator] Mike Lee, it’s [Pennsylvania Senator] Pat Toomey – it’s a few other people who have helped change the culture to a degree within the Republican Party.
But whether or not we actually get over the hump and have a real culture change depends on the next election. If we get four or five more like Toomey and Rand Paul, we’ll have a majority in the Republican conference who don’t want the status quo. We saw that in kind of a test vote with [Wisconsin Senator] Ron Johnson running for leadership. You know, he was just a few votes from winning that even though every – all the senior guys in the Republican Party didn’t want him to win. So, that was a signal, as well as some of the votes, like on [the] debt limit, where our leadership really lobbied to vote for this debt-ceiling deal and you had a large number of Republicans who didn’t do it.
And I’m not suggesting we need to change leadership. I think our leadership will reflect our conference. So that’s really what I’m all about. I think this election is more about the Senate than the presidency. We need a Republican with a pen in his hand – that’s what we need to end up in the White House. But if we don’t have a majority with a strong conservative voice in the Senate and a majority in the House, then it doesn’t matter what we have in the White House.
Q. You mentioned that more senators like Rand Paul, and you mentioned Ron Johnson. Who in this upcoming cycle would you point to somebody that you would want in the Senate, that would be part of that group?
There are four that the Senate conservatives fund is working on now. Ted Cruz, in Texas, he’s an underdog to the lieutenant governor, but its a runoff state so our goal there is to get him in the runoff and if we do I think we have a good chance I think to win it.
In Ohio, Josh Mandel, he’s a great young man, he kind of blew things away in the primary. He did well, and the last poll I saw he pulled even with [Sen.] Sherrod Brown and so there is a real chance there. I mean, I’m not naive, Ohio is important to the Democrats and they’ll spend billions of dollars making Josh looking like a radical, but this guy has done two tours in Iraq and he’s a good guy, so he’s really important.
In Nebraska, again, its another important race. Don Stenberg is the clear conservative. He’s not the strongest fundraiser, but he is the guy who will come up here, and he is not afraid. He doesn’t need to be liked, you know?
I look at it very differently – it’s not just what they say as far as their conservative credentials. I’m trying to assess whether or not they need to be loved, if they can come up here and take a stand. I’m convinced Stenberg would do that if we can get him over the hump. And I think that regardless of which Republican wins the primary, I think that we’re going to beat Kerrey. Nebraska’s not going to fall for that again.
In Wisconsin, it’s pretty much a clear establishment versus a conservative race. You know Governor Tommy Thompson, good guy, but he’s going to join the retired governor’s club up here, and we need some people – I’m not trying – there are a lot of retired governors here who are in the fight with us, I’m not trying to stereotype all of them – he’s supported Obamacare and so he’s not the right person for the times, because there was a time trying to work in a bipartisan way with something that made good sense. But now everything we try to do with Democrats has to be on their side of the ledger, it always ends up with more spending and another government program, they will not work with us on cutting anything. You could take the GAO’s worst, most wasteful, ineffective program and put it on the Senate floor for a vote. We would not get one Democrat to vote with us, maybe unless they were in a tough election or something.
So this is a real fight, Mark Neumann in Wisconsin, is a guy who came to Congress to balance the budget in the 90’s, they got it balanced in four years and he went home. So he doesn’t need this, and he’s in it for the country, and he’ll come back up here and take on whatever needs to be taken on to try and get our budget balanced, so he’s the kind of guy – there are a few others that we’ve been looking at that all of those that are underdogs when they started, but they – its winnable. There are some other races that we’ve got some good conservatives, but we’re not sure if there’s even a chance.
In the last cycle I got behind some people who where there was no chance in the world, and we’re trying to be a little bit more diligent this time since there are hundreds of thousands of people who are sending us ten dollar checks to help us elect conservatives, so theres a little more weight on me this time to actually, to make sure that we spend that money in an effective way. We’ll probably get into about two or three more races.
Q. Might you get into Indiana?
No. What I did last time, you know, after I got in against Arlen Specter, with Pat Toomey and stuff, there was such consternation in my conference. As I looked ahead to this year, with 23 Democrats up, I’ve got plenty to do on their side, and so I agreed that I would not be — you know, actively oppose any of my colleagues. But a lot of the groups we work with, FreedomWorks, Club for Growth are getting involved, with some of those races, I’m not involved with those.
Q. You recently gave about $500,000 to Club for Growth. They’re very heavily involved in the Indiana race, is that. . . ?
Well they’re involved in the four races I mentioned, I could not give campaign money to the Senate Conservatives Fund, we’re just a leadership PAC you can only give $5,000 to it. But I could give money to the Club for Growth and I’ve raised money for them for years, so I know the money I gave is going to the races I’m working and so I’m confident of that and there is no attempt to work against Lugar on that.
Lugar is a great American in my mind, a wonderful gentleman, but again I think we need people now who realize that this is not business as usual. We’ve got to change the direction of the Senate, and that’s hard for people who have been here for a while. For a lot of reasons, for relationships, for other things, so I’m not involved in the race against Orrin Hatch or Lugar or any of the other Republicans.
