Ambrose: Tim Scott GOP’s shining star

With optimism, wisdom, practicality and religious commitment as much as forming a halo over his head, the person was none other than South Carolina’s Tim Scott, deliberative energy in human form, the only Black Republican senator. The hopping around came as he announced that he is running for president, one of a pretty good crew of Republican primary hopefuls, but with something special: loving dynamism enough to rescue us from decay.

If Scott could get the GOP presidential nomination, he would likely beat Joe Biden while Donald Trump would likely lose. Despite a dedicated following, Trump also has dedicated haters who would negate that bonus. With Scott as Biden’s opponent, voters just might compare this shining star to a widening dark cloud, someone politically, morally and managerially impaired. He has been unbelievably divisive in his name-calling while his incompetently wrought inflation has cost once-admiring citizens huge amounts.

Turn again to Scott who has no question whatsoever that America’s original sin was slavery. He also maintains, however, that victimhood and misery can keep Black Americans stuck in victimhood and misery. Look at extraordinary Black progress and be confident of the gladness ahead, he says, buoyantly predicting that each of the millions of poor Black children in America right now is a hero in the making.

After all, he himself has been a hero rising from abject poverty thanks to his faith and his single mother, an adored, special woman who kept him and his brother fed by working 64 hours a week as a nurse’s aide and sometimes going hungry herself. She joined with a businessman mentor to help Scott become a first-class student after he flunked four classes in high school. A way of life for him: work hard, don’t blame others for failure and never give up.

Unlike Biden, who is 80, this college graduate is 57. He worked for a variety of different businesses, was a financial adviser, successfully sold insurance and came to own a robust insurance agency. Politics? In South Carolina, the state of his birth, he served on the North Charleston County Council, was mayor of North Charleston and served in the South Carolina House of Representatives before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. He has been in the U.S. Senate for 11 years.

One writer says he was the most effective member of Congress in the Trump years, so capable and pleasant to work with that a progressive Democratic senator said he loves this friend. Scott’s attributes as a president just might lift us economically while restoring our lapsing patriotism and unite us again. Imagine this, that there could be a joyful coming together of Black and white.