Jim DeMint leaving the Senate to head Heritage Foundation

Whoa:

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.

DeMint says he sees the Heritage job as a chance to build the conservative movement. That has been a role he's taken while in the Senate, of course, and in the wake of his party's failures in the 2012 elections it makes some sense he might want to devote more time to that effort.