Jul 15 2008
Is DeMint the Next Helms?
The State asks if Senator Jim DeMint could be our generation’s Jesse Helms.
DeMint, like Helms, is an ideological purist who holds fast to conservative principles such as low spending, low taxes, deregulation and strong national defense.
DeMint also, like Helms, doesn’t mind antagonizing fellow Republicans who drift leftward on those core principles. DeMint emerged as a leader in the Senate during his fight to sink illegal immigration reform, splitting with much of the Republican Party to kill a plan designed by President Bush.
“I spent a number of years as a team player, trying to work with our leadership, only to find that our leadership was taking us in the wrong direction,†DeMint said earlier this month about his willingness to take on his party.
I think the comparison is plausible, but DeMint would shine in a much better light than Helms did. DeMint shows the same committment to principle and the conservative cause as Helms, but he does so without all of the baggage Helms carried. I am speaking on issues relating to civil rights. Helms was on the wrong side of the civil rights movement in his opposition to racial equality. While DeMint is also a social conservative who strongly believes in the traditional family structure, his views on civil rights are far more progressive than Senator Helms.
I hope DeMint does indeed become the next conservative leader of our time. Somebody needs to take the reigns and slap the GOP around for their failures and betrayals. I want to see a resurrected committment to individual freedom and limited government and right now they aren’t even close.
