Sen. DeMint mulls White House bid

By Alexander Bolton - 06/01/11 06:00 AM ET    

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/164095-sen-demint-mulls-2012-bid-for-the-white-house?page=1#comments

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) says he is considering running for president after frustrated conservative activists have pleaded with him to run.

DeMint told The Hill that he has discussed a White House bid with his wife and will pray on the question out of respect for his supporters across the country.

The Tea Party favorite, who had indicated he was not going to run in 2012, would significantly shake up the race if he were to jump in.

Many on the right have expressed major reservations about the GOP candidates in the race, claiming they have not energized the base and/or can’t beat President Obama.



The second-term senator would have the inside track to win South Carolina, a key early state in the nomination process. Since 1980, every Republican who has triumphed in the Palmetto State has gone on to capture the GOP presidential nomination.



Some conservative activists compare DeMint to former Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.) and former President Reagan, predicting he could quickly unify social and fiscal conservatives.




DeMint insists he has no plans to run. But he won’t dismiss the growing calls for him to enter the contest.



“It’s humbling and out of respect, my wife and I have talked about it,” DeMint said late last week of a possible White House bid. “Out of respect for the people who have asked us to think about this, that’s what we’re going to do. I don’t want to imply that I’m changing in mind, but I want to consider what all these folks are doing.”



Without a doubt, DeMint would face significant hurdles if he launched an eleventh-hour bid. Throughout his political career, DeMint has not been shy in confronting major players in the Republican Party on a wide range of issues. His candidacy would not be popular in Washington, though that dynamic could also be used as an asset on the campaign trail.


There are also questions as to whether he could attract independent voters in a general-election match-up against Obama.



Two GOP factions have begun to draft DeMint for a presidential run.




One is organized by Richard Viguerie, a conservative pioneer in the field of direct-mail political marketing, who helped Reagan win election in 1980.



The other is Conservatives4DeMint, which claims to have about 4,700 members and regional coordinators in 35 states.


Viguerie held a Saturday conference call with allies to plan the initial stages of the draft movement.




“I’ve asked him about the presidential thing twice in the last five or six weeks,” Viguerie said of his recent conversations with DeMint.



“I think he’s giving it serious consideration. Hopefully this will push him over the line and give him the encouragement that there would be a strong base of support,” Viguerie added.


He said DeMint compares to Goldwater in 1964, whom conservatives drafted to challenge President Johnson, and Reagan in 1976 and 1980 respectively.




“He would be the dominant movement conservative leader,” Viguerie said. “He would be the front-runner overnight.”



Angela Toft, national director of Conservatives4DeMint, said the group launched in January after DeMint supporters began corresponding through Facebook. What began as a local fan club in California soon gained national membership.


“A groundswell erupted,” she said.



Toft said DeMint caught people’s attention by supporting conservative candidates such as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R), Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R) and California Senate candidate Chuck DeVore through his leadership committee, the Senate Conservatives Fund.



Toft said, “I know Sen. DeMint has no personal ambition to be president, but I hope he will answer the call of the American people and run.”


DeMint, 59, said everything would have to fall into place for him to launch a campaign.



“It would take an extraordinary set of circumstances for me to get in. I’ve learned not to rule out anything in life,” he said.



DeMint has already traveled to Iowa and New Hampshire to participate in candidate forums. He’s looking into having a candidates’ forum in South Carolina, as well, but has not set a date.


He said the purpose of these meetings is to pick a principled, conservative nominee in 2012.



“What I’m trying to do in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina is to encourage people to wait, not endorse candidates early,” he said.


DeMint wants conservative activists to wait, before pledging support, to see what positions candidates such as former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney say about the debt ceiling, a balanced-budget amendment and spending levels.



“What I want to be able to do is offer the right candidate a broad consensus of voters in these three early states that have waited,” he said.



DeMint endorsed Romney in 2008.



Some DeMint backers point out that the junior senator from South Carolina is one of the few conservatives in the GOP who is willing to take on his own party’s leadership. As a House member in 2003, DeMint rebuffed then-President George W. Bush by opposing an expansion of Medicare to include a prescription drug benefit.



DeMint also took on Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) over earmarks in the 111th Congress. McConnell, a longtime member of the Appropriations Committee, resisted DeMint’s proposal to establish a moratorium on earmarks. DeMint persisted, despite facing criticism within the GOP conference. He later triumphed, when his GOP colleagues adopted an earmark ban late last year.



DeMint broke with party leaders again last year when he backed Rubio in the Florida Republican primary while National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (Texas) supported former Gov. Charlie Crist, who later switched to become an Independent.



He defied McConnell in the 2010 Kentucky GOP primary by endorsing Paul after McConnell made clear he was behind former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson. Paul defeated Grayson before winning the general election last fall.


DeMint is a proven fundraiser. He raised $9.3 million through the Senate Conservatives Fund in the 2010 election cycle, disbursing it to an array of conservatives, including Paul, Rubio and Senate freshmen Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah).



The fund has raised $1.2 million so far this year, according to its website.

Half of Last Month's New Jobs Came from a Single Employer — McDonald's

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/half-last-months-jobs-came-single-employer-mcdonalds_573220.html

11:13 AM, Jun 3, 2011 • By MARK HEMINGWAY

 

 

According to the unemployment data released this morning, the economy added only 54,000 jobs, pushing the unemployment rate up to 9.1 percent. However, this report from MarketWatch suggests the data is much worse than that:

McDonald’s ran a big hiring day on April 19 — after the Labor Department’s April survey for the payrolls report was conducted — in which 62,000 jobs were added. That’s not a net number, of course, and seasonal adjustment will reduce the Hamburglar impact on payrolls. (In simpler terms — restaurants always staff up for the summer; the Labor Department makes allowance for this effect.) Morgan Stanley estimates McDonald’s hiring will boost the overall number by 25,000 to 30,000. The Labor Department won’t detail an exact McDonald’s figure — they won’t identify any company they survey — but there will be data in the report to give a rough estimate.

If Morgan Stanley is correct, about half of last month's job growth came from the venerable fast-food chain. That is hardly the sign of a healthy economy.

America, be careful as to who you choose to support

After a lifetime of love for our Constitutional freedoms and the Judeo-Christian values, I have been involved in GOP campaigns including President Ronald Reagan's campaigns in 1976, 1980, and 1984, Senator Jesse Helms in all campaigns from 1972 thru 1996, Sen. John East’s campaign in 1980, Sen. D.M. “Lauch” Faircloth campaign in 1992 and many other local campaigns. In a few short years, we turned Union County, NC around from a heavy Democrat controlled government to a true Conservative GOP control.

If everyone will truly listen and accurately evaluate what Ron Paul says, you will find Ron Paul is another twisted value of Barack Obama.

Evaluate my beliefs on my Blog: http://conservativechristianvoice.blogspot.com/

Obama Administration Calls Indiana's Ban of Planned Parenthood Illegal

Published June 01, 2011

FoxNews.com

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/06/01/obama-administration-calls-indianas-ban-planned-parenthood-illegal/ 

NIH - Medicaid Administrator Donald M. Berwick, seen in this 2006 photo at a National Institutes of Health seminar.

The Obama administration has declared Indiana's new law that withholds some public funding for Planned Parenthood of Indiana illegal and is warning other states that some of their Medicaid funding will be in jeopardy too if they pass legislation barring any qualified health care provider.

In a letter sent to Indiana's Medicaid director, Medicaid Administrator Donald M. Berwick said Indiana's plan will improperly bar beneficiaries from receiving services. Federal law requires Medicaid beneficiaries to be able to obtain services from any qualified provider.

"Medicaid programs may not exclude qualified health care providers from providing services that are funded under the program because of a provider's scope of practice," Berwick wrote in a letter to Patricia Cassanova, the director of Indiana's office of Medicaid Policy and Planning. "Such a restriction would have a particular effect on beneficiaries' ability to access family planning providers."

Indiana's law bars Planned Parenthood offices in the state from receiving federal money because it provides abortions, among other services.

Indiana should change its plan to conform with federal law, or the state could face penalties, the letter said, noting that Indiana has 60 days to appeal. In the past, state Medicaid plans that did not conform with federal law have been changed by states before HHS enforced any penalties.

In addition to Berwick's letter, the Department of Health and Human Services also posted a notice on Wednesday to other interested parties that sought to make clear that the department would take a dim view of similar efforts to ban specific providers from federal funds.

Indiana officials should have expected the proposed changes to the state's Medicaid plan would be rejected, Berwick wrote.

"We assume this decision is not unexpected," Berwick wrote. "As the Indiana Legislative Services Agency indicated in its April 19, 2011, fiscal impact statement, `While states are permitted to waive a recipient's freedom of choice of a provider to implement managed care, restricting freedom of choice with respect to providers of family planning services is prohibited."'

The HHS notice, written by Cindy Mann, the director of the Center for Medicaid, CHIP and Survey & Certification, emphasizes that states may bar providers from participating in Medicaid in certain circumstances, such as if a provider is committing fraud or criminal acts.

"States are not, however, permitted to exclude providers from the program solely on the basis of the range of medical services they provide," Mann wrote.

Medicaid is a federal-state partnership that nationwide now covers more than 60 million low-income children and parents, seniors, including most nursing home residents, and disabled people of any age.

Federal law prohibits using any federal funds, including Medicaid funding, to provide abortions. While Planned Parenthood provides abortion services, it also provides other services such as preventative care, cancer screenings, and family planning and is eligible to receive Medicaid funding for its other services.

Planned Parenthood operates 28 clinics in Indiana, four of which perform abortions. The state chapter has said federal funding makes up about 20 percent of its annual budget.

Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., expressed disappointment over the administration's announcement.

"I take it very seriously when any administration tells a state that it cannot administer its own programs," he said in a statement. "Health and Human Services should respect the will of Hoosiers who simply ask that their tax dollars do not subsidize an entity that maintains an abortion clinic."

The Susan B. Anthony List criticized the administration's decision.

"Secretary Sebelius is strong-arming states like Indiana to protect the administration's powerful ally Planned Parenthood," said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. "Women can and do have access to health services across the state of Indiana, and other states considering defunding Planned Parenthood of taxpayer dollars should work boldly to do so."

In recent days, HHS has come under lobbying from both Democrats and Republicans on the issue. Last week, a group of Democratic senators called on HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to inform Indiana that its ban didn't comply with federal law.

In response, eight Republican members of Indiana's congressional delegation sent Sebelius a letter calling on her to support the state's law.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.