GOP Sen. Jim DeMint To Resign

The Wall Street Journal reports today that GOP Sen. Jim DeMint will resign from office next month in order to head the nation's most prominent right-wing think tank.

South Carolina U.S. Senator Jim DeMint will replace Ed Feulner as president of the Heritage Foundation. Mr. DeMint will leave his post as South Carolina's junior senator in early January to take control of the Washington think tank, which has an annual budget of about $80 million.  Sen. DeMint's departure means that South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, a Republican, will name a successor, who will have to run in a special election in 2014. In that year, both Mr. DeMint's replacement and Sen. Lindsey Graham will be running for reelection in South Carolina.  Mr. DeMint was reelected to a second term in 2010. The 61-year-old senator had announced earlier that he would not seek a third term.

Right-wing sites have already lit up this morning with speculation about DeMint's replacement.

UPDATE: DeMint wants Rep. Tim Scott.

Scott, you may know, was elected in the 2010 Tea Party wave and immediately floated a bill to deny food stamps to anybody participating in a union strike.  Last year Scott called for President Obama's impeachment over the debt crisis.