Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) is applying the most effective tactics of interest-group PACs to a leadership PAC in an effort to help like-minded conservative candidates.
Jonathan Allen
Politico.com
4/7/2010
Jim DeMint wants to remake the Senate a little more in his own image, and he’s built a rainmaking campaign finance juggernaut to help in the reconstruction effort.
The poster warrior for the South Carolina Republican’s conservative crusade is Marco Rubio, the insurgent former Florida House speaker who vaulted from near-obscurity to take a double-digit lead in the polls over sitting Republican Gov. Charlie Crist in the race for the GOP’s Florida Senate nomination.
DeMint’s Senate Conservatives Fund claims credit for more than $343,000 in support of Rubio’s campaign, a combination of direct donations, underwriting fundraising appeals on Rubio’s behalf and bundling hundreds of thousands of dollars in online and direct-mail contributions sparked by those solicitations…
…“The number of people in the Senate will always be the same. The number of senators who believe in the principles of freedom and have the courage of their convictions must be increased,” DeMint told POLITICO.
In essence, DeMint is running the kind of ideological war that’s typically waged by outside groups, not elected officials…
Read the entire article at Politico.com
