Two years later, he founded DeMint Marketing, a research firm. He waited two decades before entering politics, working as an aide on the campaign of ex-Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.). When Inglis ran for the Senate in 1998, DeMint jumped into the race to replace him.

DeMint ran on a platform of a flat tax, individual Social Security accounts and a right-to-life Constitutional amendment. DeMint upset state senator Mike Fair in the Republican primary and went on to win an easy victory in the general election.

Once in the House, DeMint was elected president of the freshman class. He was a leader on allowing Social Security funds to be used for individual investment accounts, and emerged as one the House's biggest proponents of free trade. Despite criticism on trade from his district's textile sectors, DeMint won three easy re-elections. He had pledged to only seek three terms in the House; in 2003, he kept his word, deciding instead to run for Democrat Ernest Hollings' empty Senate seat.

U.S. Senate

In the 2004 GOP Senate primary, DeMint faced three challengers, one of whom aligned with him as a free trader. The other two ran as hard-core protectionists in what proved to be the primary's biggest issue. With former Gov. David Beasley (R) far ahead in the polls, the real race between the other three was for second place, which all but ensured a runoff. On Election Day, Beasley picked up 37 percent of the vote and DeMint came in second with 26 percent. Two weeks later, with the support of the third and fourth place primary finishers, DeMint won the GOP Senate nod, 59 percent to 41 percent.

The general election pitted DeMint against State Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum, a Democrat who twice won statewide election. The race was hard fought, with DeMint sticking to his primary themes of a flat tax and Tenenbaum picking up where the primary left off by criticizing DeMint's stance on trade.

The most controversial moment of that race may have been when DeMint said in a debate that "folks teaching in schools need to represent our values," explaining that he did not think that homosexuals should be teaching in public schools, nor should unwed pregnant women. He eventually apologized for the statement, explaining that he had "answered that question as a dad, with my heart."

In the end, DeMint's $2.8 million in spending was enough to overcome his controversial remarks and he defeated Tenenbaum 54 to 44 percent, giving South Carolina two Republican senators (the other is Lindsey Graham) for the first time since 1877.

In his first year in the Senate, DeMint was named National Journal's most conservative senator. He won this distinction by becoming a reliable vote on defense issues favored by the Pentagon and opposing immigration reform, which he believed rewarded illegal activity and provided insufficient border security, among other reasons.

2010 Florida Senate Race

DeMint made news in June 2009 when he bucked the Senate GOP leadership and intervened in the 2010 Florida Senate race by endorsing former state Assembly Speaker Marco Rubio (R) in the contest to replace retiring Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla).

Earlier in 2009, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (R-Texas) waded into the GOP primary to endorse Gov. Charlie Crist. Rubio is seen as the more conservative candidate and Crist the more moderate Republican.

In an op-ed for Fox News, DeMint called Rubio the "most impressive conservative leader I have met in a long time" and took a slap at the Washington GOP establishment by saying that it had ignored "diamonds" like Rubio in search of "well-known politicians" and that leaders hads based the "party's direction...on the latest polls instead of timeless principle."

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