The repairs to the fractured Republican Party is fully underway. One of the ways it is rebuilding its infrastructure is by appointing unassuming and disarming black man named Tim Scott to the U.S. Senate.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has reportedly chose state representative Tim Scott to replace outgoing Jim DeMint in Congress, the New York Times reports. Scott will become the first senator from the South since Reconstruction, a span of almost 150 years. Overall, he will be just the sixth black Senator ever (the other five are listed below).
Haley announced publicly that she selected Scott over other highly-qualified candidates because of his “conservative voting record during his two years in Congress,” three Republican officials told the Times on the condition of anonymity because the decision is not yet official.
Privately, there could be another reason for Scott’s appointment.
“There is not a kinder, more humble, sweet-spirited person,” Representative Trey Gowdy, one of Mr. Scott’s freshman colleagues from South Carolina, who was also considered for the job, said in an interview last week. “That is somewhat antithetical to what you’d expect at this level of politics.”
Scott, 47, will most likely acquiesce to the party line without being a loud, pugnacious, disruptive force in the vein of former Congressman Allen West, R-Fla., who brought a lot of attention to himself by making outrageous statements at regular intervals.
His is also a good-hearted rags-to-riches story with an interesting narrative.
Raised by a single mother, he was, by his account, a lost child who struggled with school and with life until a Chick-fil-A franchise owner took him on as a protégé and schooled him in conservative principles.
“Coming from a single-parent household and almost flunking out of high school,” Mr. Scott said in 2010, during his bid for the House, “my hope is I will take that experience and help people bring out the best that they can be.”
Interestingly enough, despite the fact that the Democratic Party has far more minorities within their ranks, the GOP will now haved the only black Senator in the country along with two of the three Latinos.
Moreover, Scott becomes just the sixth black Senator in the U.S. since Reconstruction following the Civil War. Here are the other five:
