“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,”

By JONATHAN ALLEN at POLITICO

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.

DeMint hopes to re-create his model in races around the country where hard-core conservatives are battling establishment Republicans in primaries and Democrats in general election matchups. It’s an inside-outside game designed to bolster a cluster of Senate conservatives who make trouble for both Democratic and Republican leaders.

“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.

FULL STORY

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