Their monsters are turning on them

The story of DeMint’s ouster begins in 2010 with then-Heritage President Ed Feulner’s ill-conceived decision to create a version of the Heritage Foundation with “fangs.” As Feulner and Needham wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal:

The Heritage Foundation has been called "the beast" of all think tanks. Last week our beast added new fangs with the creation of a new advocacy organization. This institution—Heritage Action for America—will be able to spend money to push legislation we think the country needs without the obstacles faced by a nonprofit like the Heritage Foundation.

DeMint succeeded Feulner in 2013. In the fall of that year Heritage proper under DeMint and Heritage Action under Needham worked in tandem to back a disastrous plan to force President Obama to “defund” Obamacare through a government shutdown. The argument was absurd. If members would only “stand firm” we could win 60 votes in the Senate and persuade Barack Obama to sign a bill undoing his signature achievement using a shutdown as leverage. In reality, Needham took conservatives hostage and begged Obama to not shoot.

Coburn rightly described the effort as “not intellectually honest” and exploitive of the base while DeMint, Needham, Senator Ted Cruz and Cruz’s undisciplined staff derided dissenters as being in a “surrender caucus” that secretly liked Obamacare (never mind that Coburn, a doctor, had offered dozens of amendments to Obamacare and had offered a leading Obamacare replacement plan). The split was personally and professionally disappointing because two mentors and allies were at odds. In the Senate, DeMint was Coburn’s most reliable partner on a host of fights, including Coburn’s campaign to end earmarks that Coburn started in earnest as a member of the House in 1998.

After the shutdown debacle Heritage’s influence waned considerably. Many Heritage scholars left and other thinks tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, the Manhattan Institute, the Mercatus Center and new institutions like The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP) rose in prominence.

By the time DeMint realized the “beast with fangs” was out of control it was too late. The beast fought back and won. According to a report by Philip Wegmann at the Washington Examiner, DeMint specifically suggested Heritage Action should be scaled back or disbanded.

he narrative presented in a recent Politico story was scoffed at by my sources inside Heritage (who requested anonymity) as a transparent effort to blame DeMint for Needham’s flaws. It was Needham, one Heritage staffer explained, not DeMint, who made the operation too political.