Sunday, Aug. 09, 2009

DeMint emerges to take on Obama over health care

Vocal S.C. senator has become conservatives’ point man

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.

DeMint, rated by advocacy groups across the political spectrum as one of the most conservative U.S. senators, has used his background as a former marketing firm owner to boil down the complex health care debate into a few pithy, attention-grabbing words.

In just the last month, DeMint has:

• Vowed to make health care Obama’s “Waterloo” and urged conservative activists to help “break him”

• Compared the United States under Obama to 1930s Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler

• Cast the heated health care fight as “a real showdown between socialism and freedom”

Obama singled out DeMint for criticism at a news conference last month. The Democratic National Committee also launched a TV ad targeting DeMint, elected in 2004.

“This is a battle I’ve been waiting for and hoping for, for years,” DeMint told McClatchy newspapers. “We’ve got to stop the socialization of medicine. We’ve stirred up a fight.”

DeMint is also challenging Obama on a lower-profile issue. He’s placed a hold on two of the Democratic president’s nominees to senior State Department posts to protest Obama’s push to return to power ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.

But DeMint is in the middle of the health care struggle.

In his quiet way of speaking, DeMint rejects Democratic claims he supports the health care status quo and backs insurance companies. He cites his bill to allow Americans to buy medical coverage across state lines and to permit businesses to pool their policies as proof he is seeking a solution to the nation’s health care woes.

DeMint rebukes his opponents’ depiction of him as a rabid partisan, noting he criticized Republican President George W. Bush for overspending, opposed his No Child Left Behind education program, voted against his late-term bailout of banks and attacked appropriations earmarks of lawmakers from both parties.

And the senator flat-out denies any connection between his strident attacks on “Obamacare” and demonstrators’ recent angry disruptions of Democratic lawmakers’ public meetings in their home districts.

“I encourage people to be civil, to be courteous and to be respectful to their lawmaker, but I have encouraged people to go to the town halls and express their views. I’ve never seen people so alarmed about the direction of their country.”

A GROWING FOLLOWING

DeMint’s growing legions of conservative admirers — who’ve made him the third-most-followed member of Congress on twitter.com — see him as a Jesse Helms throwback who tells it like it is and lets the chips of political consequence fall where they may.

“You’re a great American,” Katie Dempsey, a 20-something admirer from Houston, told DeMint last month as he signed her copy of his new book “Saving Freedom” at the National Press Club in Washington. “My mom loves you. If she wasn’t married, you’d have to watch out.”

Michael Frank is a political analyst at the Heritage Foundation, the conservative Washington think tank where DeMint drew a roaring ovation during a recent speech.

“He is fearless in a positive way,” Frank said. “He speaks his mind and conscience, and acts on it in a visible way. This becomes newsworthy in a town where most politicians do polls and put their fingers in the wind.”

DeMint disavows any interest in higher office, though he doesn’t discourage speculation over a possible White House run.

“I get asked everywhere I go if I’m going to run for president,” he said in an interview.

Critics of DeMint, including some prominent members of his own party, deride him as a demagogue.

In explaining last month why he won’t seek re-election next year, U.S. Sen. George Voinovich, an Ohio Republican, said DeMint and U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., are preventing the GOP from growing and are turning it into a Southern outpost of hard-core conservatives.

“Jim DeMint’s style of divisive rhetoric and extreme right-wing ideology has turned off voters of all stripes and helped contribute to a Republican Party which continues to shrink,” said Brad Woodhouse, communications director for the Democratic National Committee.

DeMint, 57, begs to differ.

“Republicans are still getting elected in the South and other parts of the country when they run on a conservative platform,” he said. “When Republican senators become liberal, they are eventually thrown out. If voters want liberals, they’re going to vote for Democrats.”

DeMint bristles at the notion his hard-edged words encourage the angry shouts of “Move to Europe!” or “Socialist!” disrupting Democratic town halls.

“That’s unacceptable,” he said. “We’ve got to express our opinions, but we’ve got to show our respect..”

DeMint said of the conservative outrage: “Most of this is just a spontaneous bubbling up. This is a legitimate concern by a free people when the government tries to take over our health care system.”

And, he said, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvanian Republican-turned-Democrat, deserved to be booed at a large gathering with constituents last weekend when he urged quick congressional action on health care reform.

“Sometimes booing is the only way to express your disagreement,” DeMint said.

HARD WORDS, EXTREME LABELS

In a National Press Club speech a month ago, DeMint said, “We’re about where Germany was before World War II where they became a social democracy.”

He compared the situation then in Nazi Germany — and, using his comparison, the current United States — with “power grabs like you see in Iran and other places in South America like (President Hugo) Chavez is running down in Venezuela.”

In recent days, conservative protesters have hoisted signs with photos of Democratic congressmen under Nazi insignia.

On his radio show Friday, conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh elaborated on DeMint’s Nazi Germany comparison as he spoke out against Obama.

Charlie Black, a prominent Republican lobbyist who was a senior adviser to U.S. Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign last year, chuckled when asked whether DeMint is an extremist.

“If you went down and did a survey of where people stand on the issues in South Carolina, they would be with DeMint on 19 out of 20 issues, if not all 20,” Black said. “It’s a very conservative state.”

But DeMint has gone too far, says state Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, who is weighing a run against the Republican next year.

Hutto has received encouragement from J.B. Poersch, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and other party operatives in recent meetings in Washington and South Carolina.

“The positions he’s taking on many issues are contrary to the interests of many South Carolinians,” Hutto said of DeMint. “He has government health insurance (as a member of Congress), yet he’s opposed to other people having the same type of coverage he has. I think that resonates with a lot of people.”

TAKING ON OBAMA

DeMint thinks Obama’s election win — including victories in North Carolina and Virginia, two Southern states that voted Democratic for the first time in decades — was an aberration caused by the force of the president’s personality.

“A lot of people voted with their hearts instead of their heads,” DeMint said. “Barack Obama was a phenomenon. A groundswell of emotion swept him and others into office.”

Obama’s popularity has dropped, DeMint said, as Americans separate his policies from his personal aura.

“The president is very winsome and articulate, but increasingly his policies have low favorability,” DeMint said.

DeMint said he likes Obama personally, even writing legislation with him when the Illinois Democrat was in the U.S. Senate.

DeMint, though, thinks their ideological differences made it inevitable they would clash once Obama won the White House.

“He has a completely different view of the role of government and our Constitution than I do,” DeMint said. “He believes in centrally managed economics. You see it in the stimulus; you see it in ‘cash for clunkers’ you see it in health care.

“I believe all of history proves that he’s wrong. So, I’m going to fight him on policies that I believe are against the Constitution and bad for our country.”

Rosen covers Washington for McClatchy newspapers in South Carolina.

Jim DeMint speaks out

The junior U.S. senator from South Carolina is making headlines for speaking out. Some recent examples:

“We’re about where Germany was before World War II, where they became a social democracy. You still had votes, but the votes were just power grabs like you see in Iran and other places in South America, like (President Hugo) Chavez is running down in Venezuela.”

— DeMint, National Press Club address, July 8

“If we’re able to stop Obama on this (health care), it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.”

— DeMint, conference call with conservatives, July 17

“We need to put the brakes on this president. He’s been on a spending spree since he took office. ... His goal seems to be a government takeover, not making insurance more available.”

— DeMint, NBC’s “Today” show, July 22

“It’s not personal, but we’ve got to stop (Obama’s) policies. They’re loading trillions of dollars of debt onto the American people.”

— DeMint, National Public Radio, July 22

“I may have disagreements with him on the issues, but he is my president, he deserves our respect, and we need to forget that nonsense (of claiming Obama wasn’t born in the United States).”

— DeMint, Huffington Post, July 27

“I’ve probably introduced more health care reform proposals in the Senate than any Democrat today. In fact, President Obama voted against the very proposals I was talking about — interstate commerce, personal deductibility, using Health Savings Accounts to pay for a premium, small business health plans. He voted against all these things ... which leads me to believe that it’s not health insurance he wants people to have, but government control.”

— DeMint, CNN’s “The Situation Room,” July 28

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT HIM

“Senator Jim DeMint and congressional Republicans are trying to kill health care reform. ... The only health care plan Jim DeMint supports is — no plan at all.”

— Democratic National Committee TV ad, launched July 22

“Just the other day, one Republican senator (DeMint) said — and I’m quoting him now — ‘If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.’ Think about that. This isn’t about me. This isn’t about politics. This is about a health care system that is breaking America’s families, breaking America’s businesses and breaking America’s economy. And we can’t afford the politics of delay and defeat when it comes to health care — not this time, not now.”

— President Barack Obama, health care forum, July 20

“DeMint is an increasingly influential voice in the Republican Party, and he is now regarded as a potential Republican presidential nominee in 2012.”

— New York Times columnist Gail Collins, July 23

“We got too many Jim DeMints and Tom Coburns. It’s the Southerners. They get on TV and go, ’errrrr, ’errrrr. People hear them and say, ‘These people, they’re Southerners. The party’s being taken over by Southerners. What the hell (do) they got to do with Ohio?’”

— U.S. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, July 27

“They want a private club with an admissions test. They don’t want a party which is, by definition, coalition. ... I think Jim DeMint has said as much. He’d rather (have) 32 believers (in the Senate) than he would these broad coalitions that make a majority.”

— Former Republican Rep. Tom Davis, MSNBC’s “Hardball,” July 29

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