DeMint: "We don't have shared goals with the Democrats"
WASHINGTON -- President Obama and his party should give up any hope of working with conservatives in Congress, Republican Sen. Jim DeMint warned Thursday, at the opening of a conservative conference in Washington.
"Compromise works well in this world when you have shared goals," DeMint told the activists gathered for the four-day Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). "When you have a shared goals, you can sit down together. We don't have shared goals with the Democrats."
Likening the 2012 elections to the Super Bowl, the senator said, "I can guarantee you Coach Coughlin did not tell his Giants to go out on the field and work with those other guys. They weren't cooperating with Tom Brady... The two teams had different goals. The Patriots were there to beat the other guys."
Similarly, the conservative agenda to cut spending is incompatible with Democratic goals, said DeMint, a firebrand senator well-liked among conservatives. "When you talk about a balanced budget, it's like putting kryptonite in front of Superman," he said.
"If you're in a deep hole of debt and you keep spending more than you take it, something bad will happen," he continued. "It will unless we stop this Democratic president and his party."
DeMint excoriated the president for rejecting the planned Keystone XL pipeline project and for signing legislation that grows the size of government. He commended all four Republican presidential candidates for having "very improtant things" to say and said that the ongoing primary will make the eventual GOP nominee stronger.
Winning back control of the Senate will be just as important as winning the presidency in November, he said.
"We can have Ronald Reagan as president, but if Harry Reid is majority leader in the Senate, it's a waste of a good president," he said.
