Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina following the party's throttling in the 2008 elections has been working to shake up the seniority rules in the Senate that he feels are perpetuating a broken culture of parochial spending within the party. When his fustrations over the rules boiled he decided to challenge the status quo, forming a fundraising committee with the idea of highlighting candidates he considers true conservatives, and calling out those he doesn't. His Senate Conservatives Fund ranks his colleagues on their positions, often with unflattering scores. Two years later, DeMint has done as much as anybody to incite the tea party uprising and bitter infighting that has roiled the GOP primaries this year. He has used his newfound celebrity and fundraising strength to fuel a string of upstart conservatives who were opposed by the party as too extreme or unelectable. He's also become one of the more influential Republican power brokers in Washington, with a loyal following of conservative activists and a goal of purging the party of what he calls weak-kneed Republicans.
His latest and most hostile fued within the party machine came in Deleware, where DeMint openly fought with Republican leaders in a contest between moderate Republican Rep. Michael Castle and tea party favorite Christine O'Donnell. While Republican leaders openly attacked O'Donnell's campaign - the state party chairman called her a fraud who couldn't get elected dogcatcher - DeMint gave her money and a key endorsement. She pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the year, just after another stunning result in Alaska in which underdog Joe Miller beat Sen. Lisa Murkowski. DeMint maintains that the only way for Republicans to regain the majority is to stand more firmly by its beliefs, not to shy away from them, even if that means short-term losses. Insiders are concerned that Sen. DeMint and Gov. Palin may be pushing the party to far-right to win in November and control the direction of Congress next year.
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