The most fascinating politician of 2023 will be (drum roll, please)
Quin Hillyer
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The most interesting politician to watch in 2023 will not be Donald Trump or Joe Biden, and it won’t be upstarts Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) or Minority Leader-elect Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), nor retreads such as Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) or Mitt Romney (R-UT).
Instead, the pol to keep an eye on is Republican Sen. Tim Scott (SC). The question of what he decides to do in 2023, and how, is the wild card with the most significantly wide-ranging ramifications for the rest of this decade’s national politics.
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This is, of course, a prediction, not a guarantee. Still, it’s a pretty solid bet.
Scott’s significance does not lie in his unique status as a single black man in a party whose voters are mostly married whites. The externalities of what the Left would call his “identity” do help make him more noticeable, but they aren’t what makes Scott so fascinating and influential. Instead, what gives Scott heft — and what might make him a formidable presidential candidate if he chooses to brave the Republican nomination minefield — is his combination of substance and demeanor. In both policy focus and style, Scott offers a return to a cheerfully Reaganesque sense of can-do, but far from naive, optimism.
Of potential Republican presidential candidates, only Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin offers a similar mien. But Youngkin, in just his second year in state office, would be hard-pressed to mount a national campaign.
Of the others, Trump is Trump. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a hardball operator. Former Vice President Mike Pence is earnest and deadly serious. Former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is a deftly calculating tactician. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is a hyper-ambitious hard-liner. One gets the sense from each of them that even their smiles are focus-group-tested, assuming they even remember to smile at all.
Not so with Tim Scott. He smiles readily and naturally, not to mention infectiously. His attitude is aspirational, not angry. His language is not martial, but redemptive. And his preferred approach is not to divide-and-conquer, but to unify and build.
None of this makes Scott some sort of political squish. He’s a solid conservative through and through, with a stellar lifetime American Conservative Union rating of 89.86%, putting him among the highest-ranked of all senators. (By comparison, John Kennedy of Louisiana, a conservative grassroots favorite because of his supposedly witty southernisms, rates at just 82.78%.)
Still, now isn’t the time for a full survey of his record, but rather just to understand why, in the big-picture sense, he will be such a fascinating player in 2023 and 2024. If he decides to run for president, his upbeat style and focus will stand out, and his winsome approachability will be a formidable asset. His record is generally pleasing both to Trump-style conservatives and to old Reaganites; his style welcomes back to the fold the suburbanites who split tickets in 2022 by voting for plenty of Republicans but not for those too closely identified with Trump.
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Meanwhile, even if Scott doesn’t run for president, he could prove the single biggest kingmaker on the Republican side. South Carolina’s primary for decades has played an outsize role in crowning the GOP nominee, usually serving as the tiebreaker between the candidate who wins the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. Every major GOP candidate will be vying for Scott’s endorsement or tacit assistance. If he chooses to weigh in, his influence could be decisive.
All of this means that no matter what he decides this year about the 2024 race, Tim Scott will be the center of attention. The attention will be well earned.