Colbert nominates himself for Jim DeMint's Senate seat

Thursday night on "The Colbert Report," host Stephen Colbert announced his willingness to fill retiring South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint (R)'s soon-to-be-vacant seat in the U.S. Senate.

"Tonight's big story comes from my home state of South Carolina," Colbert began, before rolling footage of the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza announcing DeMint's resignation.

"That's right," Colbert quipped, "South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint is de-quittin'."

It will be up to the state's Republican governor, Gov. Nikki Haley, to choose DeMint's successor.

"But who will she pick?  Let's see, you want somebody young, somebody conservative, somebody from South Carolina," he said, slowly beginning to point his upraised index finger at himself, "Maybe somebody who had a super PAC..."

"Now, folks, I'm not going to sit here and say that I should be South Carolina's next senator, not when so many other people are saying it for me," he continued.

The notion was raised on Thursday by USA Today, Huffington Post, Roll Call and the New York Post, with varying degrees of sincerity.  Colbert urged viewers to show their support.

“I want you to take to the Twitters, I want you to tweet @NikkiHaley why she should appoint me to the U.S. Senate with the hashtag #SenatorColbert," he said.  "'Senator Colbert'...I gotta say.  That feels right."

Watch the clip, embedded via Comedy Central, below: