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DeMint Pushes Conservative Purity in Senate
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| Contributor | karin1492 |
| Last Edited | karin1492 May 04, 2009 05:54pm |
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| Category | Profile |
| News Date | Monday, May 4, 2009 11:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | In the Senate Reading Room behind the rostrum, Jim DeMint wanted a word with Arlen Specter during a vote April 23.
As DeMint, R-S.C., tells it, he and Specter were standing between pillars and a pair of mirrors when he got to the point: “Arlen, it pains me to tell you this. I’m going to be supporting Pat Toomey in the primary.”
DeMint recalled that Specter gave him no time to explain why he was backing the Pennsylvanian’s newly announced rival in the state’s 2010 GOP primary, former Rep. Patrick J. Toomey (1999-2005), who until recently headed the conservative anti-tax group Club for Growth.
“I’ve heard enough,” DeMint said Specter told him before moving away.
That terse exchange — five days before Specter announced that he was changing his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat — provided a showcase for the new, tougher brand of party discipline that DeMint wants to promote in coming weeks as the leader of his party’s conservative faction, the Republican Steering Committee.
Specter deflected questions about his encounter with DeMint and their relationship. “It happened in the cloakroom and not on the floor,” he said simply.
DeMint found himself at odds with some of Specter’s centrist defenders, such as Olympia J. Snowe , R-Maine, who blamed the Pennsylvanian’s defection on intolerance. “You often get the distinct feeling that you’re no longer welcome in the tribe,” Snowe wrote April 28 in a New York Times opinion piece.
DeMint dismissed such concerns. He said centrists would remain welcome at the Steering Committee lunch he hosts every Wednesday under a portrait of the pipe-smoking former Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, D-Mont. (1953-77).
But he added that he hoped all Republicans soon would vow to support a short list of conservative themes. |
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