Hillsborough County Republican Party Chair Deborah Cox-Roush says that South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint will headline the party's Lincoln Day dinner on March 6.
Cox-Roush said she heard last week that DeMint would be in Florida early next month, and so she and one of her Committee members contacted the Senator, and he agreed to speak at the biggest one night affair for the party.
The 58-year-old DeMint was first elected to the U.S. Senate back in 2004, after serving six years in the House of Representatives.
He's perhaps best known nationally for declaring last year that health care reform would be President Obama's "Waterloo." Specifically, he said, "If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.” Recently however, he has tried to back away from those comments, as critics consider the line to be an example of Republicans set on obstructing the President's agenda.
DeMint was also one of the first Senators to publicly back Marco Rubio in his fight for the U.S. Senate seat against Charlie Crist.
Deborah Cox-Roush is neutral in the Rubio/Crist battle. She admits that yesterday's Rasmussen poll (that shows Rubio leading Crist by 12%) is "great" for the Rubio forces, but says "were still very early in this game," and that you can never rule out Charlie Crist, whom she refers to as "the quintessential campaigner."
The Hillsborough GOP Chair also is excited about the Republican National Committee naming Tampa as one of three cities still in contention for the 2012 Republican National Committee, where's she hoping the area's bid, rejected twice before in the past decade, finally breaks through. Tampa's competition this year is Pheonix and Salt Lake City.
This article appears in Jan 27 – Feb 2, 2010.