Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) is “keeping a close eye on the emerging 2012 presidential field,” National Review reports.
DeMint, in an interview with National Review Online, calls [former Florida governor Jeb] Bush “one of the best” possible presidential contenders. “Maybe the person we are looking for has not stepped out yet; it could be a Rick Perry or a Jeb Bush.”
DeMint feels the President is beatable.
DeMint says President Obama is “clearly beatable.” But the GOP nominee, he argues, will need to be formidable, since the president may be able to bounce off of a rebounding economy. Numerous potential candidates, he says, “are watching to see where Obama’s popularity will be. A lot is going to depend on whether people believe that he has anything to do with the economy coming back. And it will come back; you can’t keep the American economy down.”
Could DeMint be pushed into the race?
NRO wonders: In coming months, if Bush and other conservative favorites decide to sit out 2012, will DeMint feel compelled to jump in? “I really am trying to avoid that,” he tells us. “I’m looking for good candidates out there in the field.”
“I would have to feel a strong pull from people all over the country,” DeMint says. “Again, it’s not something that, right now, appears to be in my future.”
But could a grassroots ‘Draft DeMint’ movement stir him to run? “I don’t want to suggest that I’m waiting for any kind of draft,” he says. “It’s really not what I want to do. I really don’t have any intention of running. . . . I’m not ruling anything out, but it’s not something I want to do.”
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