South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint is “blazing a new trail” by helping to bankroll the campaign of a candidate in another state: Senate hopeful Marco Rubio in Florida.

DeMint has set up a personal political action committee, the Senate Conservatives Fund, to sponsor the candidacies of conservative fellow Republicans, and Rubio has become a primary benefactor, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

The fund gave Rubio the maximum direct donation, $10,000, and reported spending $93,472 on independent fundraising efforts — mainly for Web advertising and e-mails for Rubio — through March 31, the most recent campaign finance reporting deadline.

DeMint’s PAC stated on its website that it raised an additional $239,771 in individual donations forwarded to Rubio’s campaign, bringing the total haul to more than $343,000 so far — about 1 of every 20 dollars that Rubio has raised for the race.

Issue-oriented political action committees have contributed to campaigns for many years, but this is the first time a member of Congress has used a personal PAC to help bankroll another candidate in another state, Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, told the Sentinel.

“They’re blazing a new trail here,” she said.

DeMint has said he may run for president in 2012. Seeking allies, he set up the PAC “to make major investments in a handful of conservatives running for the first time,” said Matt Hoskins, a DeMint aide.

DeMint’s PAC has supported other Senate candidates including Rand Paul in Kentucky, but more than half the money the PAC has raised has been for Rubio’s campaign.

DeMint has also campaigned with Rubio several times and introduced him to key conservatives, according to the Sentinel.

Rubio, former speaker of the state house, trailed then Republican rival Charlie Crist in the polls when DeMint first came to bat for Rubio’s candidacy. But over the winter Rubio moved ahead of Crist, who has now left the Republican Party to run as an independent.

A new Rasmussen poll shows Rubio with 39 percent of the vote, Crist with 31 percent, and Democrat Kendrick Meek with 18 percent, with 12 percent undecided.

Rubio’s campaign spokesman Alex Burgos said:

“At an early stage, when this campaign needed to show signs of life, Senator DeMint’s support was a jolt of support to Marco and to the campaign.”

Senator Jim DeMint says that Democrats are in more of an allegiance with President Obama than they are with their own constituents which explains their hurry to pass a government takeover of health care.

I am planning to attend another free market healthcare rally and protest outside of Senator Nelson’s office in Davie, FL this Thursday; will follow up with a full report and photos.

H/T: Hot Air

Sure is nice to know that there are some principled people working in the United States Senate, Jim DeMint being one the most notable. Speaking out against Obamacare, the Senator from South Carolina stubbornly sticks to the facts, despite Lauer’s best attempts to frame DeMint’s “Waterloo” comments into some sort of personal vendetta.

As we all know, nationalizing the healthcare industry is a major priority in The Mistaken Won’s agenda, alongside the equally disastrous Cap and Trade. Both are free market killers; however Obamacare has the added horror of actually having the power to literally kill through rationing and other Draconian measures.

Once again, DeMint calls out Obama for voting against every measure proposed by Republicans to make health insurance more affordable, which after all, is what this entire debate boils down to. Access to affordable insurance, made possible through things like the ability to purchase across state lines, would bring down costs, as would desperately needed tort reform.

But Obama is not about real, free market solutions — he’s about destroying capitalism and turning this once great nation into some sort of European socialized democracy. If only more senators would emulate DeMint’s example of clear articulation of the issue and fearlessness in vocally opposing this President’s march to an even more oppressive and overreaching nanny-state government!

At least South Carolina got it right with one of their senators!

More often than not, the Democrats are in lockstep with most measures that visit the floors of the House and Senate; the Socialist health care plan by President Obama is not one of them.

Those of you who have been following the health care reform that Obama have in mind probably already know that the Blue Dog Democrats (the financially conservative wing of the Democratic Party) have reservations about the proposed health care bill due to the ridiculous costs involved.  that pretty much qualifies as old news these days.  What isn’t old news is that there were comments made by a Republican senator and even more telling, an alleged comment made by Obama.

You might remember when Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) on Friday of last week said that the health care bill would be Obama’s “Waterloo”?  Well, some comments made behind closed doors may very well validate those points as according to Charles Grassley (R-IA), he spoke with a Democratic House member last week who shared Obama’s bleak reaction during a meeting that took place to reports that  that some factions of the House Democrats – presumably Blue Dog Democrats – were lining up in force to stall or even tear down the overhaul unless leaders made some major changes.

According to Grassley:

“Let’s just lay everything on the table. A Democrat congressman last week told me after a conversation with the president that the president had trouble in the House of Representatives, and it wasn’t going to pass if there weren’t some changes made … and the president says, ‘You’re going to destroy my presidency.’ “

Grassley did not name the member in question but did say that he was not from his home state (Iowa); ironically or not, he brought up the remark in response to a question about whether the the president’s rebuke of  the “Waterloo” remark was affecting Finance Committee negotiations on a bipartisan overhaul bill.  I didn’t know that a bipartisan anything ever existed since the Democrats by and large exclude the Republicans from anything of real importance.

And oddly enough, there is an unlikely ally in this health care mess – the unions.  Their beef is that the potentially higher costs being passed down to their workers.  This mirrors pretty much what workers at large employers are worried about.  How would this affect companies that provide health insurance coverage to its employees?

According to a Kaiser Family Foundation  survey taken back in 2008, 77% of companies with more than 200 employees fund their own  workers’ benefits as opposed to contracting with an outside insurer; the figure rises for firms that have 1,000 or more employees where the vast majority are self-insured.  so one can expect that the self-insured health insurance plans would be greatly affected by Obama’s health care bill.

Folks, it is this simple: Obama’s health care bill does not, cannot and will not work.  The bill would basically be the equivalent of the health coverage currently in place in Canada, the U.K., France and other Socialistic wastelands.  And believe me – any health coverage that you have already purchased you can kiss goodbye under Obama’s Socialist health care scheme.  It will go up in cost big-time and as a result will be regulated to death – basically subjecting you to the government-ran health care option.  And anyone that lives in Canada will tell you, the system does not work.

Things do not appear to be looking up for disgraced Alaska Senator Ted Stevens as Senate Republican Conference leaders have been put on notice that Senator Jim DeMint plans to call for a vote next week on ejecting the convicted senator from the caucus; being ejected from the caucus is not quite the same as being expelled from the Senate.

Stevens would remain in the Senate and have full voting rights; however, he would no longer be able to participate in Republicans-only decisions and would lose all of his committee assignments, as well.  Should the effort to oust Stevens succeed, he would lose his seats on the Appropriations and Commerce committees – both of which he once led; he would lose his other three committee assignments: Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Rules and Administration and Joint Library.  He would also no longer be able to vote in weekly conference meetings.

The aforementioned seats would not be reassigned until January after Democrats and Republicans negotiate a committee structure agreeable to both parties; without a doubt it will include fewer GOP members, who lost ground in this past election.  If the conference chooses to boot Stevens, it will be in advance of any disciplinary action by the Senate Ethics Committee, which has been mum on the Stevens situation as of this writing.  Once more information becomes available, The Republican Temple will bring it to you, along with the most up-to-date GOP news.