Tim Scott enters the 2024 race. Who is he? What are his policies? Who will vote for him?
The triumph of hope over history
NPR Headline
“Sen. Tim Scott files paperwork to run for president in the 2024 election” (For story click HERE)
A Black Conservative
Tim Scott (R-SC) is one of the “friends” who Republicans point to when they deny they are racist by saying, “Some of my best friends are Black.” This social legerdemain is not Scott’s fault. Every American is entitled to embrace whichever party best exemplifies their political positions — including “no party.”
This freedom, however, raises the question: What are Scott’s political positions? To understand that, we should consider Scott’s life story.
Origins
Timothy Eugene Scott was born on September 19, 1965, in North Charleston, South Carolina. His parents, Frances and Ben Scott Sr. divorced when Tim was seven. He was then raised in working-class poverty by his mother — who, according to Scott, worked 16-hour days to provide for Tim and his older brother.
Scott’s creation story gets its road to Damascus moment when Scott was an academically struggling high school freshman. The legend has it he met John Moniz, the white owner of a Chick-fil-A franchise. Moniz noticed that Scott, a regular customer, could afford only french fries, so he started giving him free sandwiches — and life lessons. He taught the impressionable youth conservative values and the mindset to “think your way out of poverty.”
Moniz became a father figure, and Scott became a Republican.
In 1988, he graduated from Charleston Southern University with a degree in Political Science. Scott went into the insurance, real estate, and financial planning businesses. He owned the Tim Scott Allstate Insurance Agency and was a partner in the Pathway Real Estate Group.
Political Career
In 1995, Scott won a seat on the Charleston County Council with nearly 80% of the vote in a white-majority district. He was the first Black Republican elected in South Carolina since the late 19th century. In 2007, he became the Council Chairman — and served until 2009.
In 2008, he won a seat in the SC House of Representatives. He established his conservative orthodoxy by supporting the state’s right-to-work law (an Orwellian-named anti-worker measure Republicans promote to increase corporate profits).
The South Carolina Association of Taxpayers praised his "diligent, principled, and courageous stands against higher taxes." (They did not explain how it is “courageous” to support conservative orthodoxy in an overwhelmingly Republican state.)
In 2010, he was elected a US Representative. In 2012, he was reelected. His most notable acts were supporting business over labor — for instance, voting to forbid striking workers’ families from collecting food stamps, voting against an increase in the debt ceiling because God told him to, and declining to join the Congressional Black Caucus.
In December 2013, then South Carolina Governor and current fellow denizen of the 2024 GOP kid’s table, Nikki Haley, appointed him to the US Senate after incumbent Jim DeMint quit to enjoy the Heritage Foundation’s largesse of $1 million a year plus perks.
In 2014, Scott was elected to serve the final two years of DeMint’s term. He was later elected to full terms in 2016 and 2022.
As a Senator, he consistently voted against Obamacare, legislation preventing a partial government shutdown, and an independent 1/6 Commission. He did sponsor a bipartisan and successful bill to make lynching a federal crime.
His self-identified political passion was economic Opportunity Zones. These are nominally intended to bring investment to poor areas. In fact, they are just another tool to give the rich and corporations more money.
Scott has also embraced the Republican rush to the barricades in the anti-woke war by sponsoring the Parental Rights Over the Education and Care of Their Kids Act. This red-meat, MAGA distraction would ban federal funding from schools with transgender support policies that do not involve parental consent.
The Elephant in the room
South Carolina is an anomaly. It is a state dedicated to traditional families. Yet both of its Senators are aging, childless bachelors. Unsurprisingly, this has led to speculation that one or both are gay. This should be irrelevant — except they are both members of a party hostile to the LGBTQ community. So they are dogged by accusations of hypocrisy.
Scott is also an evangelical protestant with a Biblical approach to sex. At the start of his political career in 1995, Scott religiously campaigned as a 30-year-old virgin saving himself for marriage. He claimed, “The Bible’s right. You’re better off to wait.” Not that he apparently did.
As a 46-year-old, Scott implied he had strayed from his celibacy when a reporter from the National Journal asked how well he was sticking to his pledge of abstinence made 16 years previously. He replied, “Yeah… Not as well as I did then.”
He has never said who his sexual partner was. It is unlikely to be Zee Patel, then the general manager of a Charleston lingerie store called Bits of Lace. He took her along for a three-day getaway to the exclusive Cloister Beach Club on the Georgia coast as part of a junket paid for by the American Enterprise Institute.
Scott claimed Miss Patel was merely a 'close family friend' (whom he had met two years earlier when she worked for his campaign). He added it was his mother's idea to bring her along. And the three shared the Senator’s suite — not the usual arrangement for a bit of “How’s your father.” And nothing has been heard of her since.
Who are the potential Scott voters?
I do not know. Scott may attract some of the few conservative evangelicals alienated by Trump. Conservative Blacks might see him as a teammate. Although they, like anyone else, may not wish to waste their vote on a no-hoper. Scott has fiscal and anti-social warrior cred. But so does every Republican candidate.
Scott’s most significant hurdle in the reality-show world of Republican politics is his lack of sizzle. A modest demeanor is a welcome quality amidst the cacophony of GOP performative politics. Sadly, it will not attract the circus-addicted MAGAs, who expect their candidates to be adrenaline/Adderall-addled, shit-throwing loudmouths. It is the reason Ron “I want to be a real person when I grow up” DeSantis’s road to the nomination is so steep.
He could attract some attention as a novelty act — the rara avis, a Black conservative. Presumably, some right-wingers would also welcome serenity.
He is well-regarded by the other Senators — which likely indicates another problem. Republican Senators may seem extreme to most but within the GOP and its base, McConnell’s gang seem close to RINOs — despite the best efforts of Cruz, Hawley, Paul, and their fellow dead-enders to toe the MAGA line.
Conclusion
As long as Trump is in the race, it is his to lose. His only viable competitor is the currently fading DeSantis. If Trump is sidelined by his legal woes — an unlikely prospect as the appeals process renders imprisonment, even in the event of a guilty verdict, unlikely before November 5th, 2024. — that would open the door for the field.
In that case, the long shots would see their odds shorten. However, nothing suggests Scott would rise to the top in that even more favorable scenario.
Some people have suggested that his — and Haley’s — campaigns, despite their stated intention are not for the presidency. They are instead auditioning to be Trump’s VP. If true, I would file that under “be careful what you wish for.”