Sporting his new hat as the head of the Heritage Foundation, former Sen. Jim  DeMint said Saturday said that conservatives should not rely on the GOP  establishment to deliver the movement's message. He said it is time to take  matters into their own hands.

Addressing the National Review Institute's "Future of Conservatism" summit,  Mr. DeMint said that conservatives must take charge of the way the movement is  perceived.

"Conservatives have given the sole distribution rights of our ideas, our  beliefs and our values - at least in the political sphere - to the Republican  party," the South Carolina Republican said. "We are on the outside looking in  hoping they will take some of our ideas and adopt them. It is time to flip that  around."

Mr. DeMint said conservatives cannot expect lawmakers to run on their ideas  if they represent people who oppose them.

So, he said it is time for conservatives to "take charge our ideas" and  change the perception of the movement. He urged them to "make our ideas so  persuasive to the American people that candidates for office have to embrace  them in order to get elected."

"That is our job as a conservative movement," Mr. DeMint added. "We can't  keep looking to the political class and complaining that they are not doing the  right thing. We need to take the message to the American people. That is what we  want to do at Heritage. We want to be the leader, the facilitator, the catalyst  of the conservative movement."