UPDATED 5:01 AM EST, December 7, 2012
WASHINGTON (AP) — The surprise job change by the Senate's most prominent tea partyer will complicate Republican moderates' bid to nudge their party toward the center after another stinging campaign loss.
Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina is giving up his high profile in the Senate, where he annoyed establishment Republicans and delighted conservative purists. But he may play an even broader role in the nation's political debate in his new post as president of the Heritage Foundation, Washington's best-known conservative think tank.
