Politics

African American Sen. Tim Scott launches GOP presidential campaign

Washington, May 22 (EFE).- Tim Scott, the only black US senator in the Republican Party, officially kicked off his 2024 presidential campaign on Monday promising to bring hope back to the country and guarantee security along the US-Mexico border.

“If you don’t control your back door of your house, it’s not your house. If you don’t control your southern border, it’s not your country,” Scott said in his hometown of North Charleston, South Carolina, at his first campaign rally with an eye toward securing the GOP presidential nomination.

After last Friday filing his campaign paperwork with the Federal Election Commission, Scott held a big rally on Monday where he discussed his aim to take a firm stance against drug cartels and enemies of the United States, speaking of the importance of recovering the country’s founding values.

The lawmaker, the son of divorced parents and the grandson of a worker in the cotton fields of the Deep South in Salley, South Carolina, Scott often touts himself as an example of the American Dream and at the rally he once again referred to his family history in his campaign kickoff speech.

“We live in the land where it is possible for a kid raised in poverty by a single mother in a small apartment to one day serve in the People’s House and maybe even the White House,” Scott said, as per prepared remarks his campaign team shared with journalists before his formal announcement.

“This is the greatest country on God’s green Earth,” Scott said in those remarks.

The 57-year-old and deeply religious Scott believes, however, that with Democratic President Joe Biden in the White House the country is “a nation in retreat” and one that is moving away from patriotism and faith as well as the dignity of work.

“Biden and the radical left are attacking every rung of the ladder that helped me climb,” he declared.

Thus, he said, he decided to launch his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, adopting “Faith in America” as his campaign slogan.

He also promised to be a president who ends what he claimed is the assault by the left on “religious freedom,” and his views coincide with mainstream GOP positions such as reducing government spending and restricting abortion. He has said specifically that as president he would sign a federal law prohibiting abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Scott also said that he is the candidate that the left fears most.

If he wins the presidency, he said, he will also focus his attention on the US southern border and other foreign threats, such as the one many believe China poses for the US economy.

The electoral contest in the Republican Party is being overwhelmingly dominated at present by former President Donald Trump, but it also includes declared candidates Nikki Haley, the former US ambassador to the United Nations; former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutschinson and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.

Scott is the second South Carolina politician to declare his 2024 presidential candidacy, following Haley, who governed the state in the past, and although they have not officially taken the plunge as yet, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie are all expected to do so before long.

“Good luck,” Trump said on Monday, emphasizing that the Republican presidential primary campaign is “rapidly loading up with lots of people, and Tim is a big step up from Ron DeSanctimonious, who is totally unelectable.”

Trump regularly insults DeSantis, who – although he is significantly trailing Trump in the GOP opinion polls – is nevertheless his nearest challenger so far, even though he is only brushing the threshold of double digits.

With his approval rating hovers at only around 2 percent, Scott nevertheless has built up a campaign chest of at least $22 million, thus arguably making him one of Trump’s most serious competitors for the GOP presidential nod.

EFE –/bp

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