SC’s Scott poised to make history, but not with black votes | The State

U.S. Sen. Tim Scott is favored to win a U.S. Senate seat next month, becoming the first African-American ever elected to the Senate from South Carolina and the first black elected to a statewide office since Reconstruction.

But, if political polls hold true, black S.C. voters will reject Scott on Nov. 4, casting their ballots instead for his black Democratic challenger, Joyce Dickerson of Columbia.

Republican Scott, who is running to keep the seat Gov. Nikki Haley appointed him to when U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint resigned in 2012, does not dwell on the fact that his approval among fellow African-Americans is low.

“(I)t’s helpful to know how far down you are, no doubt,” Scott told The State newspaper Wednesday.

“For me, though, from a completely authentic position, the people that I talk to very often are the people that need the most help and the most hope. My life story is a story of hope and opportunity. If I don’t share that with the folks, I’m not honoring the opportunity I was given. ... Whether I get people to vote for me or not – I hope that they do – but it’s not really the only goal.”

Scott frequently talks about his path from poverty in a single-parent household and flunking school, to finding a mentor in a fast-food business owner, to eventually starting his own business before he was elected a Charleston County councilman.

Some Republicans hope Scott’s rise in the GOP will help diversify the party, appealing to the conservative social values held by many African-Americans.

“It's certainly feasible that a lot of African-Americans would listen to him as a conservative who would not listen to a white man who is a conservative,” said Dave Woodard, a sometimes-GOP consultant and Clemson pollster.

However, some African-American leaders publicly scorn Scott for his alliance with the GOP.

While there is a “good, strong conservative streak in the African-American community and the faith community in particular,” many blacks view the Republican Party with suspicion, said the Rev. Joseph Darby, a longtime pastor in the African Methodist Church in Charleston.

“You're talking about a party that came to power in the South as an act of defiance against desegregation,” Darby said. “You're talking about a party that supports ... things that are not in the best interest of the African Americans ... a party that has been openly hostile to the president of the United States that happens to be black right now.”

An inevitable win?

Scott’s challenge on Nov. 4 is to keep the Senate seat that Haley handed him in December 2012.

Haley appointed Scott – a first-term congressman representing the state’s 1st District – to fill the position until this November’s election could decide who would finish the remaining two years of DeMint’s term.

Well before election day, a Scott win was looking inevitable.

None of Scott’s fellow Republicans in the U.S. House who were rumored to have an interest in the seat decided to challenge Scott in the Republican Primary.

Meanwhile, the most threatening challenge to Scott that Democrats could muster dropped out of that party’s primary almost as soon as he had entered.

Rick Wade – a Lancaster native, former S.C. cabinet director, U.S. Commerce Department official and adviser to Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns – left the race in March, saying he did not have enough time to raise the money that would be needed to run an effective campaign.

Tega Cay’s Jill Bossi, a candidate in the newly formed American Party, also is running for the Senate seat.

Combined, Bossi and Democrat Dickerson have raised about $74,000 for their campaigns against Scott, whose fundraising has the high-dollar benefit of incumbency, even though he was appointed.

Scott had $3.1 million on hand to spend heading into October, having spent $3.4 million already in his bid for the seat.

‘The DNA of hope’

Whoever wins on Nov. 4 will make history.

Either Scott or Dickerson would become the first black U.S. senator elected by S.C. voters.

Scott and Dickerson also are joined by other black candidates running for statewide office this year: state Rep. Bakari Sellers, son of civil rights activist Cleveland Sellers, is running for lieutenant governor, and fellow Democrat Tom Thompson of Forest Acres is running for state superintendent of education. Morgan Bruce Reeves of the United Citizens Party is running for governor.

Any winners in that group next month would become the first blacks elected to statewide office in South Carolina since Reconstruction.

Scott is the only likely winner in that lineup. A recent Winthrop Poll had him leading Dickerson by a 52-32 margin. Bossi trailed with less than 2 percent.

But polls show the race between Democrat Dickerson and Republican Scott is not even that close among black voters.

A late-September poll of likely voters by CBS News showed 60 percent of African-Americans favored Dickerson while only 15 percent chose Scott. A month earlier, a similar CBS poll showed Scott’s black support at 7 percent.

“So it’s up,” Scott said of his black support, projecting the optimism that he says is a deliberate part of his leadership style.

Scott, who said he does not put much stock in polls, did note that a Charleston newspaper poll this summer said his approval rating among nonwhites was 23 percent.

That figure came before Scott said he began “diving in and using resources” in black media markets around the state.

Scott said he is reaching out to black voters “not because I’m trying to get everybody to vote for me, though I would like them to. The fact of the matter is, if we don’t figure out the DNA of hope, we’re going to have chaos in our country, and it’s not going to be pretty.”

The GOP, in trying to build the party, has been missing the mark, Scott added.

“If you want the vote, don’t focus on the vote. Focus on what motivates people. ... It’s a slow moving message that, ultimately, if you win hearts, the votes take care of themselves.”

‘Opportunity Agenda’

But it takes more than a black messengerto appeal to African-American voters, said Todd Shaw, a University of South Carolina political scientist and interim director of that school’s African-American Studies.

“If the message says that we believe in a government that does not press questions of civil rights or is not as concerned about those who suffer from long-term unemployment and poverty, ... then you're not going to tap into some important and long-lasting concerns of the African-American community,” Shaw said.

Democrat Dickerson says while some black voters hold conservative social values, including her, they question whether they can trust the Republican.

Scott says black voters can.

The focus of his congressional proposals has been helping people in need, people like him who grew up in poverty and have struggled to achieve success, Scott says.

After a quiet first year in the Senate, Scott started 2014 by introducing his “Opportunity Agenda,” a series of education and workforce-related legislative proposals.

Some proposals in Scott’s Skills Act, introduced in January, were adopted into the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which was signed into law, including:

•  Eliminating delays that hinder job seekers from accessing job training services

•  Eliminating 15 workforce programs identified as ineffective or duplicative

•  Requiring independent evaluations of workforce and job training programs every four years

Since moving to the Senate, Scott has toured the state, working in a thrift store, sweeping floors and cutting chicken in a burrito restaurant, and riding a public bus in Charleston.

“I just rode around and talked to folks about where they are and what’s important to them,” Scott said in January in Columbia. “What we’re trying to do is not just talk for people in need, but talk to people in need.”

Ultra-conservative voting record

Scott’s voting record is very conservative, his challengers note.

Bossi, the American Party candidate, said Scott has voted against access to health care, fair wages for women and raising the minimum wage.

Speaking at a conservative gathering in Charleston in March, Scott said he opposes raising the federal minimum wage, saying he does not want government to make that decision.

“I want to see the minimum wage to go up because our profitability and our productivity requires it — because if you don’t, the competition will.”

He also said high school students, who told him they make the minimum wage, understood his point when he said raising their wages would mean one of their peers would lose his job so employers could cover the wage increase.

Scott consistently scores high marks among fiscally and socially conservative groups and low marks among civil rights advocacy groups.

Scott's 93 percent approval rating from Heritage Action – the political action group tied to the now-DeMint-led Heritage Foundation – is the highest among South Carolina's congressional delegation.

In comparison, Lindsey Graham, Scott’s fellow Republican U.S. senator from South Carolina, has a Heritage Action rating of 52 percent, the lowest of the state's congressional Republicans.

‘Where common ground meets’

Despite his ultra-conservative voting record, Scott said he has partnered with Democrats on some legislative proposals. But those efforts do not get much attention, he added.

“It's much more en vogue to talk about the strident differences between the parties because it sells better – negative sells better.”

For example, Scott said he and Democratic U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey co-sponsored a bill to offer tax credits to employers who offer apprenticeship programs modeled after S.C. programs.

“We had a great time. We Facebooked together” to promote the bill, he said.

Scott said he also is working with U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, on education proposals.

“He’s (Murphy is) not going the private school choice route,” Scott said. “But he's willing to go the charter route and look at other ways of empowering parents. I find that quite exciting.

“This is a place where common ground meets. I don't get exactly what I wanted, but I get to start on an issue that is very important to me.”

‘Say some bold things’

Democrats and Republicans both say a Scott win would give him a special opportunity, though they disagree on exactly what that chance is.

For Woodard, the GOP consultant and pollster, Nov. 4 offers a rare chance to ask voters questions about political identity and race.

Woodard said Scott’s support among white Republicans could prove that race doesn’t matter to GOP voters.

“I don't think people are voting for Tim Scott because he's black,” Woodard said. “They don't care if he's black. They like him because he's conservative.”

Scott’s life story also has caught the attention of conservative groups, including the DeMint-chaired Palmetto Policy Forum, a think tank that the former senator founded in South Carolina to advocate for conservative public policy.

The group invited Scott to speak at its March gathering because, as director Ellen Weaver said at the time, “we believe his story is the perfect example of why we do what we do.”

Introducing Scott at the event, Spartanburg GOP financial consultant Barry Wynn said, “(Scott) has the mind of a conservative, but he has the heart that thinks about all those who are less fortunate,” a quality “that crystallizes the message that the Republicans have got to have to win in 2014 and 2016.”

But the quest to pull black voters into the GOP will be difficult – and it’s not a goal that Scott says that he is focusing on, though he acknowledges he would like African-American votes.

Race and the GOP’s history figure heavily into who blacks vote for, said Darby, now a presiding elder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church’s Beaufort district.

“In Charleston, there is an awareness that in every race he's won, he's done so with Republicans, and done so with majority white support,” Darby said.

Darby said he hopes Scott’s actions reflect “the sentiments of all his constituents.”

Scott, he added, is “in a position to be heard and and to say some bold things,” changing the perception of the GOP from the inside out.

“If he doesn't,” Darby added, “then the GOP's big tent is still going to resemble the Klan to a lot a black folks.”