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I think Jim DeMint clears that up nicely

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  March 17th, 2011 at 03:13 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

After suggesting Mike Lee was going to be wholly ineffective the other day, Jenn Rubin has turned her sights back on Jim DeMint today with some statements from DeMint that Rubin accurately notes could ruffle some feathers within the tea party movement.

DeMint said, among other things, “One of the reasons I endorsed Romney [in 2008] is his attempts to make private health insurance available at affordable prices.”

Rubin notes,

His backers and the Republican base more generally are not going to buy the excuse DeMint has offered on RomneyCare. Romney is going to be savaged by the right, and from those very people who have given DeMint his base of support. So the question for DeMint is: Is he willing to risk his own conservative street cred to support a candidate who will be the target of his base’s ire?

Well, DeMint has made sure no one will connect him to supporting Romneycare. He won’t support Romney until Romney apologizes for Romneycare. The Hill reports

A source close to the conservative icon emphasized that, despite comments to The Hill indicating that Romney shouldn’t shoulder all the political blame for the Massachusetts healthcare plan, DeMint wouldn’t endorse Romney again unless he admits the plan was mistaken.

“It’s obvious Jim was just trying to be nice to the guy he backed over McCain, as many conservatives did in 2008,” the source said. “But he would never consider backing Romney again unless he admits that his Massachusetts healthcare plan was a colossal mistake.”

I think that ends that.

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  • silentcal2012

    I think that was the issue; Jim DeMint’s support for Romney and RomneyCare in 2008.

  • aesthete

    He walked it back. I don’t see a huge problem.

  • donnybrooke

    “Romney has degrees from Harvard & Brigham Young Univ Found at a Turkey Farm!”

    Some turkey wants it’s diplomas back!

  • victrola

    I think Romney’s health care plan was a mistake, but I think some conservatives are being intellectually dishonest when they say the original bill was a carbon copy of ObamaCare.

    I honestly believe Romney’s intent on the bill was to find a conservative solution to arguably the biggest problem with health care, the “free-rider”, People who can afford health insurance, but don’t want to pay for it, and instead make everyone else pick up the bill, which makes the cost of health care skyrocket.

    The Democrats later morphed it into a form of universal health care, but much of the bill was written by the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, and the bill even got praise from many prominent conservative groups and organizations. You’ll notice not a peep was brought up about it when Romney ran in 2008, with even DeMint and the National Review endorsing Romney.

    In my opinion, any time you let government get involved, disaster ensues, which is why I think RomneyCare was not a good idea, but I don’t think Mitt Romney set out to create socialized medicine in Massachusetts, and I think DeMint deserves praise for being intellectually honest on this issue.

  • robbyshankar

    So DeMint himself makes a statement to the effect that RomneyCare isn’t a killer for Romney, and then some anonymous “source,” not even listed as a staffer, claims that DeMint will require Romney to own up to the mistake (a mistake which DeMint was gaga over in 08). How is this cleared up? So far, the only concrete information you can go on is what DeMint himself said.

    My prediction is that DeMint will endorse Romney with Romney’s current explanation of Romneycare.

  • mine

    We’ve reached a new low when we beat up on the likes of Jim DeMint. People, politics is the art of making coalitions with like minded people to become the majority. When we attack good principled people like Jim, we are in a very lonely minority indeed. Let’s support these great conservatives and strengthen them. We do no good in attacking them.

  • 20jan2013

    And I say that with respect to one of the very best of our allies, Senator DeMint.

  • robbyshankar

    I should note that DeMint did say in reference to Romneycare, ?It just depends on how he plays it. For me, I think he started with some good ideas that were essentially hijacked by the Democrat legislature.? If Romney came out and said he wanted to apply Romneycare to the entire country, DeMint would obviously bolt. DeMint’s own statement makes it clear that his support will depend on how Romney “plays it.” Having said that, I’ll be surprised if Romney’s current approach doesn’t satisfy DeMint. As long as Romney vows to repeal Obamacare, I think that DeMint will endorse Romney.

    On a side note, these anonymous sources in Washington are ridiculous.

  • aesthete

    I’m pointing out that the guy rashly endorsed a plan that he didn’t know much about, walked it back when he saw the abomination that was ObamaCare, and would like Romney to do the same: changing your view as you get new information is the hallmark of a thinking conservative.

  • Adjoran

    There was no shortage of people ready to accuse him of turning RINO over a single report. The whole brouhaha was overblown – no one has served the conservative cause more faithfully than DeMint.

    Romney has defended his own plan very poorly, and that is HIS problem. Sure, even his original proposal was flawed before the Democratic legislature got their hands on it (and after he left, their refusal to allow premium hikes doomed it completely as a viable system).

    But Massachusetts was going to enact a state health care plan one way or the other. I always saw Romney as acting like Nixon did with the EPA and later with wage-price controls: getting out front to avoid something even worse from the Congress.

    After leaving office, Romney might have made that defense – BUT with both Democratic contenders promising a national socialized plan, he staked his claim to a lesser evil based on the limited market involvement he had proposed for the Commonwealth.

    Obviously that didn’t work for him, and it puts him in a very awkward spot after the nationwide public revolt against Obamacare. But Presidents are often in sticky wickets and taking the day off to play golf isn’t a good solution, so how and if he can extricate himself from the trap he set for himself will be a test of his mettle.

  • Locke

    only to the socialist mind.

    I honestly believe Romney?s intent on the bill was to find a conservative solution to arguably the biggest problem with health care, the ?free-rider?, People who can afford health insurance, but don?t want to pay for it, and instead make everyone else pick up the bill, which makes the cost of health care skyrocket.

    From each according to his ability; to each according to his need is not a conservative objective. Allowing people to purchase only the amount and type of insurance they want is freedom. A free rider is one who receives an individual benefit without paying for it, not one who merely fails to pay for the benefits of others.

  • Locke
  • rbdwiggins

    Principle, sacrifice and courage have been replaced by self-aggrandizement, self-preservation and cowardice.

    When principles are sacrificed on the alter of personal policy preferences, the natural evolution of the political class fills the void.

  • rbdwiggins

    Principle, sacrifice and courage have been replaced by self-aggrandizement, self-preservation and cowardice.

    When principles are sacrificed on the alter of personal policy preferences, the natural evolution of the political class fills the void.

  • silentcal2012

    “From each according to his ability; to each according to his need is not a conservative objective. Allowing people to purchase only the amount and type of insurance they want is freedom. A free rider is one who receives an individual benefit without paying for it, not one who merely fails to pay for the benefits of others.”

    That is exactly what the poster is stating. The “free rider” problem is aout those “who recieve an individual benefit without paying for it. Many people receive care, but have no insurance. Everyone else incurs the cost through higher costs of health care and premiums. Conervatives are sensative to illegals who do this, but many legal citizens do it. Its a tremendous burden on the system. Its a problem that requires a creative solution, but a problem nonetheless.

  • e_rowe

    What possible way could any conservative ever have used Romneycare as a reason to endorse Romney? If it took Obamacare to get him to see the wrong in that, that’s a definite mark against him.

    I like Demint, he’s probably the third least liberal Senator, behind Rand and Lee. But really, what was he thinking in 2008?

    There’s nothing wrong with calling a spade a spade. Every politician needs to know they’re always on notice. Nobody gets a pass.

  • e_rowe

    You’re right that Romney care was an attempt to find a “conservative” solution to that, but only by redefining the word “conservative” to mean “big-government Republican.”

    That’s the same line I remember hearing Tom Delay use on Limbaugh once when he said how proud he was of Medicare Part D. He insisted that it was good because it was a conservative approach, which he defined as something that included competition.

    There are countless examples of Republicans pulling stunts like those. It’s the typical scenario of trying to fix a big government-based problem with a big government-based solution, instead of getting rid of the government program that caused the problem in the first place. It seems like a never ending cycle, and the government just keeps snowballing.

    We shouldn’t give them an inch on stuff like this. We can’t just tolerate Republicans who will take the government in the same basic direction as the Democrats but at a slightly slower speed (and in some issues, like foreign intervention, and even faster speed). We need to turn the ship around. Very few Republicans show any signs at all of wanting to do that. The ones who do, like Ron Paul, are the best friends Red Staters have policy-wise, and they’re precisely the ones people here are quickest to throw under the bus in favor of left-of-center Republicans like Romney.

  • e_rowe

    I haven’t seen anyone turn on Demint or call him a RINO.

  • silentcal2012

    That was my only point. I think conservatives look smug, when they offer up the argument the old status quo was acceptable.

    The poster made the argument that the free rider problem was a figment of a socialist mind. It is not. The answer probably lies in making cat plans accessible, and not allowing compassion to interfere with medical bill collecting. It would bother me knowing that my premiums were skyrocketing, while gangsters and thugs clog the ERs and run up health care costs that I have to pay for. That’s not “socialist”.

  • e_rowe

    I didn’t use that word, and I didn’t mean to defend the idea the other poster was making about socialism either. My reply was more to the way Romney would defend his plan as a “conservative solution” to a problem, which it certainly was not.

    And that’s exactly why I avoid using the word “socialism” as often as a lot of other conservatives do. It gives the Republicans a loophole when they want to pass some government growing legislation, so that they can pawn it off as somehow “conservative” just because it’s not technically “socialist.”

    If McCain had won in 2008, I think we’d still have some health care reform that he would have proudly championed with bipartisan support. It would probably look an awful lot like Obamacare, only nobody would be calling it socialist and there wouldn’t be a tea party fighting it.

  • e_rowe

    And it’s a strange ultimatum to give anyway.

    Even if Romney does flip-flop and decide in May of 2011 to repudiate Romneycare after having just reiterated in February of 2011 that he was still proud of it, just so that he can get Demint’s endorsement along with whoever else wants him to do that, what good would that do anyone? It won’t undo Romneycare, and it won’t change Romney’s platform or political philosophy. It’s just a meaningless symbolic hoop to jump through, like all Romney’s other flip-flops.

  • aesthete
  • acat

    Bill and Hillary proved that healthcare costs are an issue.

    The way HMO plans sprouted and grew like weeds proved that healthcare costs are an issue.

    Malpractice insurance rates and doctors closing their practices because they’re not profitable proved healthcare costs are an issue.

    Whichever party got in front of this issue with real reform would have won… but all Bush 2.0 seemed to do was work with Teddy Kennedy to expand Medicare.

    Mew

  • powertothepeople

    He made a choice based on a sorry set of candidates. Who was he supposed to chose, Huck, McCain……?

    And he is not a conservative as Rand? What has Rand done yet to prove his absolute conservatism? I mean by golly, a few months so far “shows” he far outweighs DeMint and his YEARS of service. Oh and yes, Mike Lee has spent enough time in office to never make a mistake, never make a decision you do not like, and has proven his conservatism……..right? Get real.

    And hate to break it to you, none of us in SC could care less you have him on “notice,” it would take a lot more than one “poor” decision for us to even think about replacing him.

    And he gets a “pass” from us in SC and most other conservatives so not sure who you think you are fooling. Sorry, but we are not going to get so picky that we attack the one guy who has stood strong for us over your perceived opinion that he was wrong. He made a decision based on poor candidates and when he saw more, he made a better decision. And that is A OK with me and many many others.

  • e_rowe

    And I didn’t say Rand “far outweighed” anything. Sure, Rand and Lee might not end up following the trajectory they have started on, but if they both do, they’ll be by far the two least liberal senators we’ve had in many years. No one else would come close.

    Who should Demint have endorsed in ’08? I don’t know. He could have done what Sanford did and endorsed no one. If he had to pick one of the top three, I don’t see any reason Romney was better than the other two. Huck was clearly better on the social issues, and McCain was probably about the same on the social issues, and slightly less liberal than Romney on fiscal issues, though pretty close to a wash. I can’t say I would have noticed so much which of them he endorsed. But to use Romneycare as a positive reason to endorse him , rather than a strike against him even in 2008, just strikes me as really fishy.

  • powertothepeople

    than retype a reply, simply look above. You just repeated , I will not.

    You are more than entitled to your opinion on DeMint, and you have just as much right to be wrong, silly, absurd, ect. And you did not actually use the word outweigh, but when you put two freshman senators who have had no time to prove a thing yet as being more conservative than a man who has been in the gap for years, shows you are star struck and not speaking rationally. Sort of like the ones who are calling for West, Rubio, Rand, etc for president even though they are yet to do a single year in office proving who they are.

    PS: Won’t really get into your title, but when a person spends their career doing the right thing, it is a service. The ones who use the office to push leftist agendas or enrich themselves are the ones who would make your title correct.

  • e_rowe

    http://www.fitsnews.com/2011/03/24/jim-demint-wont-seek-presidency-in-2012/

    He’s apparently considering endorsing either Ron or Rand Paul if they run in 2012. He already has my respect for being the third least liberal senator. If he does this, that respect will only increase.