Global Courant 2023-05-22 22:13:38
South Carolina Senator Tim Scott launched his presidential campaign on Monday, offering an optimistic message that he hopes can contrast the two figures who used political belligerence to dominate the early Republican primary field: former President Donald Trump and Florida governor, Ron DeSantis.
Scott, the Senate’s only black Republican, made the announcement in his hometown of North Charleston at Southern University, his alma mater and a private school affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
“Our party and our nation are at a moment to choose. Victim or victory?” he told cheering supporters, adding: “Complaints or grandeur?
“I choose freedom, hope and opportunity.”
He said the party needs a candidate who can boost more than just the grassroots.
Scott has regularly denounced Democrats for expressing what he calls false social and political grievances. But expressing such sentiments about his party could be an alternative to Trump, who has spent years repeating lies about how he was denied a second term in office due to widespread fraud that did not occur during the 2020 presidential election.
Meanwhile, DeSantis has pushed Florida to the right by advocating controversial new restrictions on abortion and LGBTQ rights, as well as trying to curtail the power of Disney, one of its state’s most powerful corporate interests.
Scott, 57, planned to gather with home state donors after the kickoff event and then launch a whirlwind two-day campaign to Iowa and New Hampshire, who are going first in the Republican presidential primary.
The announcement rally included an opening prayer by South Dakota Republican Senator John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican, who said, “I think our country is ready to be inspired again.” South Dakota’s other senator, Republican Senator Mike Rounds, has already announced his support for Scott.
The closest rival for Donald Trump’s presidential nomination is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, right. (Gaelen Morse, Marco Bello/Reuters)
A number of high-profile Republican senators have already supported Trump’s third bid for the White House, including Scott’s South Carolina colleague Lindsey Graham. Nevertheless, Trump struck a conciliatory tone to begin with, welcoming Scott to the race in an online post Monday and noting that the pair worked together on the tax cut signed by his administration.
Cash on hand
A source of strength for Scott will be his campaign bank account. He goes into the 2024 race with more cash than any other presidential candidate in US history, with $22 million US in his campaign account at the end of his 2022 campaign that he can transfer to his presidential coffers.
His team says it’s enough money to keep Scott on the air with ongoing TV commercials in states with early elections until the first round of voting next year.
Scott also won re-election in staunchly Republican South Carolina — which votes third on the Republican presidential primary calendar — by more than 20 points less than six months ago. Advisers are betting this could make Scott a serious contender for an early primary win that could give him momentum to go deeper into the primary race.
But Scott isn’t the only option in South Carolina. Former state governor Nikki Haley, who was also once Trump’s former ambassador to the United Nations, officially entered the primaries months ago.
Like others in the Republican race, including former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson and the author of Woke, Inc. offer this week.
One way Scott hopes to do that is through his trademark optimistic rhetoric. With his Christian faith as an integral part of his political and personal story, Scott often quotes scripture at his campaign events, weaving his reliance on spiritual guidance into his mute speech and even bestowing the name “Faith in America” on his pre-launch listening tour. .
Scott said Monday that America’s promise means “you and I can go as high as our character, perseverance and talent will take us.”
“That’s why I’m the candidate who fears the far left the most.”
The Democratic National Committee responded to Scott’s announcement by rejecting the idea that Scott offers a major alternative to Trump’s policies.
DNC Chairman Jamie Harrison, who ran unsuccessfully for the South Carolina senate in 2020, released a statement Monday calling the senator “a fierce advocate of the MAGA agenda,” a reference to the Make America Great Again movement of the former president.
