Just breaking, via NY Times:
9:47 a.m. | Updated Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina has chosen Representative Tim Scott to replace Jim DeMint in the United States Senate, according to Republican officials. The move will make Mr. Scott the first black senator from the state since the late 19th century. Ms. Haley is expected to make her announcement at noon in South Carolina, according to officials.
For Republicans, Mr. Scott, who lives in Charleston, offers a unique story and background, one that is in scant supply in their party right now. Raised by a single mother, he was, by his account, a lost child who struggled with school and with life until he a Chick-fil-A franchise owner who took him on as a protégé, schooling 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.”
Gov. Nikki Haley chooses Tim Scott to replace DeMint as South Carolina senator, three Republicans say. Noon announcement.
— Jeff Zeleny (@jeffzeleny) December 17, 2012
Finally—some GOOD news!RT@jeffzelenyGov. Nikki Haley chooses Tim Scott to replace DeMint as SC senator, three Republicans say
— Michael Graham (@MGraham969) December 17, 2012
Senator Timothy E. Scott (R., S.C.) nyti.ms/U4m8qe
— Robert Costa (@robertcostaNRO) December 17, 2012
Tim Scott will be a welcome addition to the Senate. nyti.ms/V36GeW #tcot #tlot
— FreedomWorks (@FreedomWorks) December 17, 2012
If true, excellentnationalreview.com/campaign-spot/… fb.me/1MI4we26y
— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) December 17, 2012
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Comments
Let the left’s racist hate-fest begin.
No doubt THAT is coming. A “female” (remember the “War on Women” the Left has) of Indian descent (no, not HER or that type of!) picks a BLACK man?
‘He is an “Uncle Tom”, “Sell Out”, or the new term “Cornball”. Pick one or all.
Oh, it will.
Look at the Rethuglican! Picking a black guy! They think they can buy the black vote with tokens! Oh, it’s a woman who picked the black guy! Yeah, a woman who betrayed her won and became a Christian! Yeah, a woman who needs a man in her life!
It goes on…
They’ll Thomas her for awhile, then they’ll Bork Scott.
I think they’ll have a hard time debasing Scott. He’s a thoroughly nice person and wicked smart. I think he can hold his own!
Ohhhh, but the attacks are rarely tied to the real facts about the ‘victim’. All that matters is their political ideology and their social classification (as defined by progressives).
“Unique” and in “scant supply” not because we didn’t have candidates such as Mia Love, Dan Bongino, Allen West, Vernon Parker. I contributed to all of them. Vernon Parker in Arizona 9 was outspent 2 to 1 by a far left democrat. Conveniently a Libertarian candidate was also in the mix and did quite well. I read the GOP didn’t think Dan Bongino would win US Senate in Maryland so he wasn’t their priority. The GOP (whether Fla. or national) redistricted Allen West out of his seat, then got a nasty, old line Fla. GOP guy out of the woodwork to run against him in the primary, call him a radical, and when the guy lost the primary he endorsed the democrat. Jeb Bush went around Florida saying the new people in the GOP are “dangerously right wing and rigid.” Mia Love’s race was very close. There may be others, but it’s obvious the national GOP is a bigger impediment than democrats. P.S. Here is US Senator Tim Scott’s 7/13/2010 statement to the NAACP objecting to them calling the Tea Party ‘racist.’
If this comes to pass, Republicans will have seen their already narrow margin of control in the House decline by at least two seats just since the election: 1) Tim Scott; and 2) Jo Ann Emerson who waited until after she had securely won re-election and her nearly $200,000 annual salary and perks to announce that she was resigning to become CEO or a rural electric cooperative.
I don’t know how, or if, Scott and Emerson’s seat will be filled. If they remain vacant, given Boehner’s demonstrably weak leadership, it’s going to be harder for him to keep the Republican conference in line.
Not sure your point. The GOP has a majority by 30+ members now and after 2013 swearing in. The body passes legislation by a simple majority. Regardless of how Boehner acts, it’s hard to believe those two people (Scott and Emerson) created some kind of balance or offset that prevents Boehner or the body from passing something, whether good or bad.
Fantastic news — and great to hear it from Prof. Jacobson, complete with breaking tweets! He’s too modest, so I’ll note that his immediate prediction on hearing of the vacancy on December 6 was that Tim Scott would be appointed: https://legalinsurrection.com/2012/12/jim-demint-resigning-from-senate-to-head-up-heritage-foundation.
The racial component of this story, properly viewed, is NOT that the Republicans are somehow engaging in affirmative action in the selection of Scott (none is needed to justify selecting him). Rather, it’s the absence of any Democrat U.S. Senator. That says something about the polarization and tokenism of the Democrat party, which is focused in maximizing the number of minorities in Congress, which it does by steering its minority stars into gerrymandered, leftist congressional districts in which they compile records that make them almost always unelectable on a state-wide basis. More from me on that, in the Scott context, here: https://legalinsurrection.com/2012/12/jim-demint-resigning-from-senate-to-head-up-heritage-foundation/comment-page-1/#comment-395829.
Various people have addressed this in detail, of course. For example Josh Barro in Forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbarro/2012/03/15/gerrymandering-and-black-statewide-officeholders.
And James Joyner on the “clownish legislators” produced by this system, in which primary campaigns sometimes devolve into a debate about which candidate is blackest, not who’s best (with Harvard Law grad Artur Davis recently losing that competition):
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/racial-gerrymandering-and-idiots.
I think the matter can be simplified even further. With progressives, the current objectives have nothing to do with making race irrelevant. Their worldview is a deliberate effort to make race the MOST relevant aspect of all things cultural and political. It’s not clear to me if many progressives (not classical liberals) ever wanted race to be irrelevant. But it is very obvious to me its value to their idea of governance.
You could take out the context of elections and put in any other context – academic administrations, private sector employment, economic strata, any cultural measure – and progressives will almost always first filter the situation by race. It isn’t just political roles.
“For Republicans, Mr. Scott, who lives in Charleston, offers a unique story and background, one that is in scant supply in their party right now.”
It appears that the New York Times has no idea what the word “unique” means.
Yeah, well…in common with not knowing the meaning of a lot of other words…
Not being a native English speaker I have been under the impression that anything that is “unique” is by definition under extremely scant supply. Quess one should read more NY Times to be disabused of such fallacies.
Is this unique story and background in plentiful supply among Democrats in the Senate?
They know exactly what it means, and are employing it to suggest the Republican party is white, elitist and racist. It’s the classicly decorous NY Times projection-smear. And Times readers perfectly understand. Across their white, elitist and racist enclaves, they nod in silent agreement.
I think “unique” in that context means “unlike the stereotype of Republicans that we’ve been peddling right here at the NYT.”
Yes! Rep. Scott was my pick, too! I love, love, love that man. He is a breath of fresh air and a really, really smart guy. Congratulations, Senator Scott!
[…] » Tim Scott named to replace Jim DeMint – Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion […]
” … struggled with school and with life until a Chick-fil-A franchise owner who took him on as a protégé, schooling him in conservative principles.”
That’s how we’ve got to do it.
That’s why one of my dreams is that when I retire, (well, semi-retire, I think I’ll always be working) I’d like to gather a group of enthusiastic retired people who love investing and get them to work with underpriveleged kids and teach them the joys of investing. Get the kids to feel they have a stake in America and its prosperity and that they can succeed.
It just dawned on me what a nexus of factors for progressives and modern Dems that Tim Scott represents. Conservative. Black. Southern. And the added pepper of having been associated with Chick-fil-A. Their hatred of conservatives is clear. Their desired monopoly of the role of race in politics is clear. Their hatred for the South and it’s increasing dominance in the role of conservatism in politics became more obvious with the 2008 and later elections (throwing in the tried and true race aspect, too.) And now they have the added evil corporation angle in that he was associated with a totally non-PC organization in their eyes.
Will there be some spontaneous combustion at least in the Daily Kosian world of the blogosphere/Twitter domain?
Apparently Sen. Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island, whose daughter married the sole male heir to the Rockefeller fortune (her son was VP Nelson Rockefeller), didn’t mind being called “the Senator from Standard Oil”):
http://re-thinkinghistory.blogspot.com/2008/09/gilded-age-notes-1870-1895.html.
Maybe Tim Scott should be called “the Senator from Chick-fil-A” — as a compliment both to him and John Moniz, his Chick-fil-A mentor!
The problem is that he is not Jackson and Sharpton “Black”.
[…] Tim Scott named to replace Jim DeMint (legalinsurrection.com) […]
Congratulations to SC US Sen-select Tim Scott. Great choice Gov. Haley !
Now, if we can just replace all the RINOs in the House with Tim Scotts and Ted Cruzs, We the People will be home free !!