Jim DeMint, a South Carolinian who is one of the most conservative members of the U.S. Senate, doesn’t shrink from bucking his party’s leadership. In 2001, for instance, he was one of the chief GOP foes of President George W. Bush’s key education initiative, “No Child Left Behind.” He fought Bush’s 2008 emergency bank bailout, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). And lately, he has gone his own way to spend more than $1.5 million in support of Republican Party insurgents like Joe Miller in Alaska, Sharron Angle in Nevada, and Christine O’Donnell in Delaware.

Now heading into an easy election for a second Senate term, DeMint is emerging as a de facto chief of a Senate Tea Party caucus and likely power player in the 2012 GOP presidential nomination process. He “wants to be the leader of what he hopes to be the dominant faction in his party,” says Curtis Gans, director of American University’s Center for the Study of the American Electorate. But there are a lot of sharp elbows in politics and DeMint’s actions, which are provoking a backlash from the Republican leadership, highlight the divisions within the party heading into the midterm elections and beyond.

DeMint has been flexing his legislative muscles in the Senate. He objected to the fast-tracking of legislation by threatening to block any bills that hadn’t been made publicly available at least two days before the Senate’s adjournment last Thursday. The move, which Senate staffers claimed was unprecedented, slowed down what is normally a routine process to pass noncontroversial measures. In an E-mail sent to all Senate offices, DeMint said the request had come from the Senate Republican Steering Committee, a conservative Senate group that he chairs. His office said he was simply trying to ensure that no costly measures had sneaked in.

Full Story: DeMint chooses purity over politics and over GOP leadership – US News & World Report