South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint is leaving Congress to head the conservative Heritage Foundation.

The Tea Party-backed senator announced the move Thursday, saying he will step down from the Senate in January to become president of The Heritage Foundation think tank.

"I'm leaving the Senate now, but I'm not leaving the fight. I've decided to join The Heritage Foundation at a time when the conservative movement needs strong leadership in the battle of ideas," he said in a statement. "No organization is better equipped to lead this fight and I believe my experience in public office as well as in the private sector as a business owner will help Heritage become even more effective in the years to come."

DeMint has been an outspoken voice in the Senate for its most conservative wing, most recently chiding House Republican leaders for offering to put revenue on the table as part of negotiations over the looming fiscal crisis...

Republican running mate Paul Ryan criticized Democrats Wednesday for having "purged" the word "God" from their official platform, calling the move "peculiar" as Democrats downplayed the omission.

"I think it's rather peculiar. It's not in keeping with our founding documents, our founding vision, but I guess you'd have to ask the Obama administration why they purged all this language from their platform," Ryan said in an interview with Fox News.

He was among several conservatives complaining after the official party platform was adopted late Tuesday at the Democratic convention in Charlotte, N.C.

The Democrats' 2008 platform, like platforms before it, included the word "God"...

While many presidential candidates head to the convention podium with an Ivy League degree in their back pockets, a majority of Republican vice presidential candidates in the last 24 years have come with a common qualification on their resumes.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney‘s selection of Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate continued a trend of Republican vice presidential candidates with resumes boasting former and, now with Ryan, current membership, in the Republican Study Committee (RSC).

Six of the last seven presidential elections, and four of the last five tickets have featured RSC vice presidential candidates — former Vice President Dan Quayle (1988 and 1992), former Housing Secretary Jack Kemp (1996), former Vice President Dick Cheney (2000 and 2004), and now Ryan (2012).

Mitt Romney has selected strongly pro-life Rep. Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential running mate. Ryan is a Wisconsin congressman know for his conservative stances on fiscal and budget issues but he is very strongly pro-life — saying he would never vote for abortion.

Ryan has made a solid pro-life pledge that will endear him to millions of voters looking for a pro-life Vice President to replace pro-abortion Vice President Joe Biden.

During the 2010 elections, Ryan told The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack, “I’m as pro-life as a person gets.”

He responded to a controversial “truce” that Mitch Daniels of Indiana had put forward saying social issues should be put on the back burner, and repudiated it.

“You’re not going to have a truce. Judges are going to come up.

Sources close to the Gingrich campaign say preliminary "what-if" conversations are underway that could lead to a Gingrich-Perry ticket being announced prior to the Republican National Convention at the end of August.

Gingrich insiders hope forming a predetermined ticket with Perry will unite the evangelical, Tea Party and very conservative voters that make up the core of the GOP.

As discussions got underway, a spokesman for Texas Gov. Rick Perry released a statement saying, "Gov. Perry thinks Newt Gingrich is the strongest conservative to debate and defeat President Obama and truly overhaul Washington. The speculation is humbling but premature."

Floating Perry as a runningmate two days before Alabama and Mississippi could energize conservatives or turn them off.

A senior aide to Rick Santorum called it a desperate hail mary to create buzz ahead of contests in Alabama and Mississippi Tuesday...

Rick Santorum pushed back Monday against Mitt Romney’s constant needling of the former Pennsylvania senator’s “take one for the team” comment during last week’s Republican presidential debate in Arizona, dubbing Mr. Romney the “most liberal guy” in the GOP race.

Mr. Santorum said during the debate that a number of votes he cast in Congress reflected his loyalty to the party rather than his personal preferences. Mr. Romney, locked in a tight battle with Mr. Santorum in the Arizona and Michigan primaries Tuesday, repeatedly has criticized Mr. Santorum’s defense as a failure of leadership.

“I’ll tell you what team I was on. I was on George Bush and the Republican conservatives’ team, and I have a voting record that backs it up — a 90 percent conservative voting record,” Mr. Santorum said Monday in an interview with The Washington Times-affiliated “America’s Morning News”...

DES MOINES, Iowa – Rick Santorum received 34 votes more than Mitt Romney in the leadoff Iowa caucuses, state Republican officials reported Thursday, after initially claiming Romney was ahead by eight votes.

Party officials were reluctant to declare an official winner, since the results from eight precincts are still missing and any of those could hold an advantage for Romney.

But Santorum's campaign declared victory in a statement Thursday morning, suggesting the surprise ending to the historically close Iowa caucuses has helped undercut the aura of "inevitability" around Romney.

"We've had two early state contests with two winners," Santorum spokesman Hogan Gidley said. "Conservatives can now see and believe they don't have to settle for Romney, the Establishment's moderate candidate. ...

(CNSNews.com) – Conservative leaders challenged congressional Republicans to continue to hold the line against tax increases and urged them to further cut federal spending. They also congratulated the GOP for opposing Democratic proposals to raise taxes in the failed congressional supercommittee.

“Today we applaud the Republicans on the supercommittee for not caving in to any disastrous taxes,” said ForAmerica Chairman L. Brent Bozell III at a Washington, D.C. news conference on Tuesday. “We applaud grassroots conservatives and the Tea Party members who made it clear to Republicans in Congress that raising taxes is absolutely unacceptable.”

Congressional liberals killed any meaningful debt reduction because they were unwilling to admit that spending is the problem.

He's not on the Super Committee - he's not even a member of Congress - but Grover Norquist wants you to know that it's not his fault if the Super Committee fails.

The deficit-reduction committee is likely to announce Monday that they've failed to produce an economic plan before this week's deadline, largely because the Republican and Democrat members disagree on whether or not to raise revenues as part of the solution.

Norquist, who heads the conservative think-tank Americans for Tax Reform, has, over several years, gotten almost every Republican member of Congress to sign a pledge promising to never vote to raise taxes. Some Democratic members of the Super Committee are now blaming that pledge for the gridlock between the two parties over the tax issue.

"One of the problems has been a pledge that too many Republicans took to a Republican wealthy lobbyist by the name of Grover Norquist," Super Committee member Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash, told CNN.

Conservatives are rallying in support of a balanced-budget amendment in the run-up to a Friday vote, warning fellow lawmakers that it's just about the only way to ensure Congress follows through on vows to cut spending.

The debate comes the same week the national debt crossed the $15 trillion mark. The milestone was a timely reminder of Washington's hard-to-break habit of spending way more than it takes in.

As a bipartisan committee remains stuck on how to cut $1.2 trillion from the 10-year deficit, lawmakers skeptical about the government's fiscal track record pushed Thursday for the amendment.

"We need a fiscal fix that will last for generations," Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said. "If we want to make lasting cuts to federal spending, a constitutional amendment is the only solution.