Jim DeMint just got capped and the right wing is still reeling. Since news broke that the Heritage president was getting sacked, many DeMint loyalists have started cleaning out their desks, the entire staff remains officially in the dark, and one board member has already resigned in protest.
But hopes for a softer touch from the conservative conglomerate may be premature. DeMint isn’t being forced out because of his politics. The firebrand will be extinguished because of complaints about his leadership, several sources confirmed to the Washington Examiner.
When DeMint left Congress for Heritage in 2013, it seems that he never left the Senate behind. “The reason why the board got upset with him was his mismanagement,” a source with knowledge of the situation explained. “DeMint and his people just tried running the place like a Senate office rather than a think tank. It didn’t work.”
While few fault the South Carolina conservative for mixing it up with Capitol Hill, his critics complain that the former senator didn’t secure a proper policy footing before throwing political punches. That supposed disconnect manifested itself in the apparent disconnect between Heritage and Heritage Action, the organization’s 501(c)4 lobbying arm.
“The board just wants Action to keep doing its job,” the source explained. “But that means they need to be backed up by the think tank side of things.”
Ahead of a massive grassroots army, Heritage Action can easily blow up legislation they find ideologically unacceptable. But after the dust settles, those conservative politicos complain that their corresponding wonks haven’t equipped them with a policy substitute to offer lawmakers.
“We were always getting pressure from the Hill to produce an alternative,” a senior GOP aide and former Heritage Action employee confirmed. “A lot of times the researchers would be caught flat footed and we would have to pressure the Foundation to produce that stuff.”
More than poor work flow, that disconnect would eventually set the stage for a coup against DeMint, a putsch that was orchestrated by Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham.
“He offered an olive branch,” a person close to the situation explains, “if DeMint wanted to run [Heritage Action], Needham would take a demotion and run research. He was very concerned about the lack of policy development at Heritage and wanted to fix it.”
Opponents find that explanation laughable. They describe Needham as more Cataline than Cicero, an operative interested in climbing the rungs of power rather than an academic interested in scholarly research.
“I think it’s funny that they can’t just pick something,” a Heritage policy expert said. “How can they say that DeMint was too political then say that the Foundation didn’t put forward politically based research? Honestly, they’re throwing everything against the wall hoping something sticks.”
And so far, at least one of Heritage’s old guard agrees.
When Todd Herrick first joined the board of the Heritage Foundation, DeMint lived South Carolina, Heritage Action was just a gleam in Needham’s eye, and President Bush still occupied the Oval Office. But after donating, guiding, and supporting the think tank for over a decade, Herrick called it quits. Without DeMint, he doesn’t see much of a future for the organization.
“It just isn’t right. As far as I’m concerned,” the dry and coy donor told the Washington Examiner by phone Saturday, “I think the world of Jim DeMint, I think that he represented us well but apparently the board knows more than I do.”
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
