"I will rebuild and restore every rung of the ladder that helped me climb, because I want my American story to pale in comparison to yours," Scott, 57, told supporters at Charleston Southern University. Scott, the only black Republican in the Senate, has held the seat since 2013 and was reelected last year by more than 25 points.
Scott joins an increasingly crowded Republican field that includes Trump and fellow South Carolinian, Nikki Haley. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is also expected to make his run official this week. All three hopefuls lag behind Trump in the polls. A Harvard University poll conducted last week shows Scott polling at just 1 percent, Haley at 4, and DeSantis at 16. Trump, meanwhile, is polling at 58 percent.
But the numbers aren't enough to deter Scott, who says he’s not running with the aim of becoming another candidate's vice president. Scott argues that he offers voters a unique combination of optimism and winning conservative policies—an alternative to the pessimism and culture war politics that dominate much of the GOP primary field . . .
. . . Trump himself touted his work with Scott Monday in a statement wishing his primary rival well.
"Good luck to Senator Tim Scott in entering the Republican Presidential Primary Race," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "I got Opportunity Zones done with Tim, a big deal that has been highly successful. Good luck Tim!"
I like Tim Scott, or to be more accurate I liked Tim Scott. Not that I don't now but it was a hell of a lot more when he first came on the scene. Since then, he's been at best a "meh" Senator and to the best of my recollection has gone along with Mitch McChiCom on a number of key issues. He gets just a "C" rating from the Conservative Review Liberty Score, although some of their positions on issues might not be in line with our's either. But that said, he has been consistently underwhelming in the upper chamber, at least from my perspective on things.
What he has going for him is at least he's not Nikki Haley, a total fraud, ditto Asa Hutchinson, or even worse than both of those, the oleaginous lipid mass known as Chris Krispy Kreosote Christie. I find it most interesting that Donald Trump chimed in to wish him well, and to praise him for helping him on the enterprise zone thing. Is he telegraphing a VP pick? Certainly seems that way considering for the past several months, he Trump has taken every opportunity to trash Ron DeSantis, someone who IMHO has accomplished a hell of a lot more than Tim Scott.
And I see that John Thune – Conservative Review rated as an "F" –
who will be given the royal jowls upon Yurtle's retirement has come out and endorsed Scott. This is what we call in the trade "the kiss of death."
As a complete aside, this Vivek Ramaswamy character has been throwing out a ton of red meat, among other things the pardoning of all J-6 political prisoners. "He's part of the WEF! He got a Soros endowment!" (money, not yutzickle). Hundreds of people have and yes many have gone on to be part of the Dark Side, while many others have not. We'll have to wait and see on Ramaswamy. "Trust but verify" as Reagan said about Gorbachev. I only put it out there because so far from what I have heard, I have liked. It's not a presidential endorsement but he seems to have similar attitudes about things that we do, so let's keep him in the reserves.
Psaki-psircling back, regardless of the bullshit nature of polling at this stage and perhaps at any stage, my own personal sense is that, barring some unforeseen event, Trump is going to be the nominee. His greatest asset more and more unfortunately becomes his Achilles heel: his mouth. For sure, he feels that DeSantis is probably the only one in the pack who has a shot at the nomination, and so he's on the attack. The problem is, it's counterproductive to our movement and I think to his campaign. As I said, DeSantis' record in Florida in terms of the culture war insanity, education and Chinese COVID is self-evident. Small wonder that outside of Texas, people are fleeing there from all over the country.
That said, Ron DeSantis does have baggage that troubles me. In particular the fact that people like Karl Rove and the Murdochs are singing his praises. What does that indicate? Either he's their puppet or they're just so blinded by Trump Derangement Syndrome that they're backing him to make sure Trump doesn't get the nod. That doesn't make sense because they're all globalist Deep State swamp-dwellers. Surely they realize that the vast majority of DeSantis' policy positions are in line with the MAGA movement? They may be dumb but they're not stupid.
Oh well. Politics ain't beanbag as the expression goes, but as I have stated, we are no longer in an environment of business as usual. Do any of the aforementioned realize this? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe there's no other choice than for everyone to engage in retail politics despite the fact that we are rapidly devolving into some sort of neo-East Germany. I'd rather Trump, DeSantis, Ramaswamy and whoever else form a united front that both exposes the GOP-e grift stoogery, and stands united to confront the mortal danger that we are facing.
Stop laughing. I'm a cockeyed optimist.