DeMint: I’m Comfortable With Romney

Roll Call ^ | March 22, 2012 | David M. Drucker with Meredith Shiner

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said today that Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney doesn’t have to prove his conservative bona fides to him and hinted that it might be time for former Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) and former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) to consider exiting the race.

DeMint, who endorsed Romney in 2008, stopped short of backing the former Massachusetts governor in this year’s GOP primary. But in an interview following a morning closed-door meeting with Romney in Washington, D.C., DeMint said the former governor impressed him with his commitments to fiscal reform and to repealing President Barack Obama’s health care law — as well as the “urgency” the Senator said Romney expressed in his discussions about the challenges facing the country.

“I’ve always been very impressed with Mitt. I don’t question his conservative credentials. He’s, I think, been a great leader in a lot of ways. So I feel very good about him,” DeMint told reporters. “He knows we’re on the precipice; he knows some very hard decisions need to be made; he knows we need to balance our budget, and I think he knows the next four or five years could be the most difficult our country faces.”

In an earlier interview with reporters just off the Senate floor, DeMint suggested that he expects Romney to be the nominee and indicated that he hopes Gingrich and Santorum will support the governor once that becomes apparent.

“For me, I think I’d like to move on to the real problem, which is Obama, as soon we can. But these candidates have put their heart and soul, they’ve invested so much of their lives in this thing, it’s going to be their decision when they can do more good by getting out than getting in. And I don’t know when that is. They have to decide. And no one should be able to tell them they have to get out,” DeMint said. “But I just hope that at some point they’ll realize whether they can win or not and if they can’t, the best thing they can do probably is help the one that’s going to win.

“I hope we don’t drag it out to the convention,” DeMint added in the later interview. “Each of the candidates is just going to have to decide when they’ve given it a good run.” Gingrich and Santorum are vowing to take the race to the late August Republican nominating convention in Tampa, Fla., insisting they can prevent Romney from garnering the 1,144 delegates he needs to secure the nomination.

Following their one-on-one meeting, DeMint and Romney were joined by tea-party-inspired stalwarts, according to sources, including Sen. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), who previously endorsed the governor; Senate Republican Policy Committee Chairman John Barrasso (Wyo.); Sen. Ron Johnson (Wis.); Sen. Mike Lee (Utah); and GOP Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio), Steve King (Iowa) and Joe Pitts (Pa.); and Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.

DeMint declined to discuss the specifics of the meeting, saying it was considered private. But when asked if could share in broad terms the message Romney communicated to the Members he met with today, DeMint described it this way:

“When someone asked him in simple terms: Why are you running? He said it’s to save the country. ... That’s what I needed to hear and I think everyone in the room needed to hear — [that] really our country’s at stake, and we want a president that understands that this is not a business as usual. ... I think what we got from him is a sense of urgency.”

DeMint’s remarks couldn’t have come at a better time for Romney.

His campaign was still dealing with a media firestorm emanating from comments a top aide made Wednesday that compared the campaign process to playing with an Etch-A-Sketch toy. Romney’s critics — as well as Gingrich and Santorum — used the comments to charge that the governor will abandon the conservative positions he’s staked out in the primary once he sews up the GOP nomination.

“It’s almost like an Etch-A-Sketch,” Eric Fehrnstrom said during an interview on CNN. “You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.”

The Romney campaign said Fehrnstrom was referring to the strategic dynamics of transitioning from running in a primary to a general election campaign, but Democrats and the governor’s conservative critics pounced. DeMint said the issue did not come up in his meeting with Romney.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

You'd think the GOP elite could take a hint from the disgusted base, wouldn't you?

[TexasFreeper2009]

grief, even DeMint is selling out now.

*sigh*

[Yashcheritsiy]

Jim, you’re killin’ us here.

I swear, it’s time to scrap the GOP lock, stock, and barrel and replace it.

[MestaMachine]

demint sold out to romney a long time ago. We knew this was coming.

[Cyber Liberty]

I got quite bit of heat the other day for suggesting DeMint isn’t as rock-ribbed as people think. I got this tagline from one of the more sarcastic responses.

[MotorCityBuck]

Your dead to me now, Fredo.

[lexington minuteman 1775]

I don’t trust a single GOP at this point..they are selling us out..time for someone to come up with something to replace the modern Whigs( GOP) with and move on with some conservative alternative.
Freegards
LEX

[Diogenesis]

IS THIS THE GREATEST MOMENT IN AMERICAN CONSERVATISM?

YOU ARE THERE

THE IMPOSITION OF OBAMACARE/ROMNEYCARE
AND DEATH PANELS BY MYTH ROMNEY
AND THE FELON.

The ineligible, metamorphosing, vulture-corporatist:
"I bet you $10,000 that you rot in jail for this
while I will be lauded widely for our imposing with a stroke of my pen
this RomneyCARE/ObamaCARE,
its costly boondoggle of fewer doctors,
longer waits to be seen, millions more illegals in ERs,
our new death panels from which WE are exempt,
and the rising insurance rates for everyone else."

[vmivol00]

Et Tu Jim?

They are all bunch or worthless windbags.

Never put your faith in the man. Put your faith in his ideas...but never in the man. The man will ALWAYS disappoint you.

[BitWielder1]

Good for you Jim, you're a Senator, wealthy and set for life no matter what happens.
I'm none of those things and I'm not comfortable with Mitt. Not at all.

[lexington minuteman 1775]

I don’t trust a single GOP at this point..they are selling us out..time for someone to come up with something to replace the modern Whigs( GOP) with and move on with some conservative alternative.
Freegards
LEX

[gov_bean_ counter]

Yep, and I'm comfortable with a colonoscopy as long as I'm knocked out. Just wake me in five years, will ya?

[GeronL]

I wonder how long ago the country clubbers agreed to lose in 2012?

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The rollout of state governor’s in places Mitt needed a boost with their endorsement, was the usual game.

Anyone left now who continues with the, “I’ll let it play out, or I don’t want to influence the vote,” is in the bag for Romney.

That Haley Barbour wouldn’t open his mouth until after his state voted made it more than clear that word had gone out that if you can’t say something nice about Mitt don’t say anything OR wait ‘till Mitt needs you and then endorse and/or their weak spines won’t allow them to stand for something if it means loosing votes down the road.

What a disgusting lot.

[dt57]

Game Over dude. I can’t believe I am saying this but it is third party for me as well.

[Captain Peter Blood]

There we are, now Jim DeMint selling out. I guess the Republicans don't really want to win and are now officially the Socialist Lite Party.
Well no more donations or anything else to the Republicans.
It is time for a rock ribbed Conservative Party to be formed. no more chances for the Pubbies, it's over.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

This gives me little hope that ObamaCare will be repealed, that power will return to the states, that federal agencies will be closed down, regulations eased, taxes lowered and reformed, that we will drill toward energy independence, that education will again be locally run, that we will have freedom of religion, that our country will have strong defenses....

[Engraved-on-His-hands]

No thanks, Jim.

[Josh Painter]

Yes. DeMint is the last straw. Ronald Reagan’s GOP was a victim of assassination by establishment Republicans. They’ve even managed to brainwash many former conservatives like Ann Coulter and Jim DeMint. Time for an American Conservative Party.

[alstewartfan]

Hey Sen. Demint, you’ve just been ETCH-A-SKETCHED!You don’t seem to get that many of us loathe Romney and think that he’s a transparent fraud.