By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Perhaps the best job in the world for anyone passionate about policy and politics is to be a United States senator.
It pays well. You get to travel. You become part of an exclusive club where you can actually do big, meaningful things. You learn about a lot of different topics. And it can be a special kind of wonky fun, despite long hours, politicking, fund-raising and endless meetings.
“I can do more to help more people,” by being in the Senate over the long term than by advocating for people in individual cases as a lawyer, former U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings once told me.
So it comes as a head-scratcher to read that 51-year-old U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, just elected to his first full term, may be considering running for governor in 2018 – especially after news that fellow Republican and Lt. Gov. Henry McMaster will step into Gov. Nikki Haley’s shoes when she becomes ambassador to the United Nations for President-elect Donald Trump.
It’s all but certain that McMaster, who has wanted to be governor for years, will seek a full gubernatorial term in 2018. And with a Republican now to be in the White House, it defies logic that Scott would want to leave Washington now that the GOP also controls the House and Senate. You’d think that Scott, frequently listed as one of the nation’s rising political stars, would prefer the national spotlight over a smaller state one. Besides, he could always run in 2022 after McMaster, who would be 75 by then, had served a full term.
Yet we read a few stories, confirmed by a Scott spokesman, that Scott is considering but hasn’t made any decisions about running for governor. He is “simply just going to pray about” running with U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy, a Spartanburg Republican, as his lieutenant governor running mate. Both men, you might recall, have been named to be part of Trump’s transition team – more evidence of their national stature.
Scott’s rise to national prominence has been meteoric. Born in North Charleston in 1965 in working-class poverty, a conservative mentor “helped instill in Tim the notion that you can think your way out of poverty, and that the golden opportunity is always right around the corner,” Scott’s bio offers.
In February 1995, Scott won a special election for Charleston County Council where he served until 2009 when he became a member of the S.C. House of Representatives. In 2010, he was considering a bid for lieutenant governor, but decided instead to run for U.S. House with news that a coastal seat would be open. He won a runoff against Paul Thurmond, son of legendary U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond. Two years later, he was re-elected.
But a month and a half later in December 2012, Haley appointed Scott to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the surprise retirement of Jim DeMint making Scott the first black U.S. senator since Reconstruction. In 2014, Scott won his first statewide election to finish DeMint’s expired term. This past November, he won a six-year term to the Senate by nabbing about 1.2 million votes in the Palmetto State – more than Trump did.
So after five big elections in the last eight years, it seems Scott might want to coast for a bit – to get away from as much fund-raising and glad-handing – to enjoy being a senator, not mixing it up over another seat.
News of Haley’s imminent departure to the United Nations and its impact in the political calculations for the ambitious are surely unwelcome holiday gifts to several Republicans who have been eyeing the governor’s mansion, including former Lt. Gov. Yancey McGill of Williamsburg who has been raising money for months. Also on the list: S.C. House Speaker Pro Tem Tommy Pope of York County, former agency head Catherine Templeton of Mount Pleasant and incumbent Attorney General Alan Wilson.
The only person whose political math hasn’t changed is S.C. Senate Pro Tem Hugh Leatherman, the Florence Republican who chairs the Senate Finance Committee. While one scenario shows him as the next lieutenant governor, he squelched that notion by saying he’d just stick to the state Senate. And that makes complete sense because that’s where he’s may have more power and influence than any governor.
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