Tim Scott appeals to conservatives of all colors

Steven Moore:

Republicans in need of encouraging signs for the new year need look no further than Tim Scott. He was appointed by Gov. Nikki Haley on Monday to succeed Jim DeMint as U.S. senator from South Carolina. Mr. Scott is a charismatic and principled economic and social conservative from the Deep South. He owes his rapid political rise in part to the tea party movement. Oh, and he is black.

In a few weeks, when the new Congress convenes, Mr. Scott, 47, will take his place as the first black senator from a former Confederate state since Reconstruction. This will make it exceedingly difficult for liberals to maintain their stereotype of the South as a land teeming with white racists. "If that were true," he says, "how could I have been elected to Congress in a district that is 70% white?" He adds: "I have campaigned all over the state of South Carolina. It is the friendliest state in the country. And truly here people judge you by the content of your character not the color of your skin."

Though he would clearly prefer to discuss substantive matters other than race—"I try to steer away from these issues," Mr. Scott says—he recognizes that he has been thrust into the spotlight as a groundbreaking black politician. With some prodding, he reluctantly addresses the subject.

He says that he is fully aware of the challenge that he presents to the GOP's traditional liberal critics. "I think one of the most threatening places to be in politics is a black conservative," Mr. Scott says, "because there are so many liberals who want to continue to reinforce a stereotype that doesn't exist about America." What stereotype is that? "That somehow, some way, if you're a Republican you're a racist and if you're black, there's no chance for you in society.

"We have serious challenges in this nation. Some are racial. But in my life, the vast majority of people that have really afforded me the opportunity to succeed were white folks. Is there a better way to say that?"

Mr. Scott's own story exemplifies the change in attitudes taking hold in the New South. When he first ran for office 18 years ago, for county council, even his friends were shocked. "People said, 'Son, you're running in the wrong party.' They had never even heard of a black Republican. I ran against a white guy, who was a very popular Democrat at the time. I won, not because I was black and a Republican. I won because they liked my values."

Mr. Scott is sitting down with me in the Cannon House Office Building a few days after his appointment. Chairs and desks are stacked in the halls, ready to be moved to the Senate.

Most conservatives and Republicans in South Carolina and around the country were delighted by Ms. Haley's choice. But the left wasted no time pouncing on the appointee. Adolph Reed, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, took to the op-ed page of the New York Times with an indignant piece entitled "The Puzzle of Black Republicans." Mr. Reed sneered that Mr. Scott holds positions "utterly at odds with the preferences of most black Americans" and that his rise fits "a morality play that dramatizes how far [blacks] have come. It obscures the fact that modern black Republicans have been more tokens than signs of progress."

To the left, Mr. Scott is dangerous because he has challenged liberal orthodoxy his whole career.

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I really like Tim Scott.  I can understand why he has been successful at getting votes of conservatives.  Almost all of the racist opposition to him will come from the left.  They recognize that if they Democrats lose the black vote they are doomed.