Hoping to be Trump’s VP pick, Tim Scott puts a ring on it
When Selina Meyer, the titular character in the acerbic political comedy “Veep,” discovers that she’s pregnant, her chief of staff minces no words: “An unwed mother one aneurysm away from the presidency. How do you think that plays?”
So in deference to the archaic “family values” that voters selectively demand of certain politicians, Meyer does what any ambitious presidential aspirant would do — she concocts a story about being engaged to the man she’s been secretly dating.
Personal lives are always ripe for political fodder. This is especially true in presidential campaigns, which is something Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina endured during his bid last year for the White House. Scott was badgered with questions, reportedly including from potential Republican donors, about why, at 58, he’s never been married. His dodgy answers may have helped close whatever slim path he had to the GOP nomination.
Now, Scott is suddenly engaged.
While he garnered headlines last week for endorsing Donald Trump as his party’s presidential nominee, news of his engagement is a more potent announcement — he wants to be Trump’s pick for vice president. This time, Scott is taking a different tack to keep innuendo about his private life from derailing his political ambitions.
Scott proposed on Saturday to Mindy Noce, who made her surprise debut as Scott’s girlfriend at the end of his last primary debate, just before he suspended his campaign in November. Claiming he met her at church and that they’ve been dating for about a year, he’s portrayed their relationship as the real thing, not an act of political prestidigitation conceived to allay the queasiness of Republicans hung up on Scott’s sexual identity.
“As a guy who is mostly an introvert and on the quiet side, having to have a conversation about the engagement is a little, you know, uncomfortable in a way, but it’s the most exciting thing I’ll do with my life besides making Jesus my Lord,” Scott said in a Washington Post interview on Sunday. He even released a photo of himself, down on one knee, proposing to Noce on a South Carolina beach in a shot that could have been plucked from a season finale of “The Bachelor.”
Of course, this begs the question as to why Scott, who has always been fiercely guarded about his private life, is suddenly so eager to talk about having found “a soulmate and someone who shares a lot of the same interests, passions and goals that I do,” as he put it.
It wasn’t that long ago when Scott balked at discussing his unmarried status. Barely into his campaign, he was asked at an event hosted by Axios how he would respond to those “hesitant to vote for a single man talking about family values.”
Scott, as publicly exasperated as he’s ever been, said that “to suggest that somehow being married or not married is going to be the determining factor on whether or not you’re a good president or not — it sounds like we’re living in 1963, not 2023.”
But Scott knows that unquestioned heterosexuality is at least one determining factor in becoming the standard bearer for his party. It also speaks to the utter hypocrisy of Republicans who blanch at the idea of backing for president or vice president someone who could be perceived as gay but support with their whole chest a man who cheated on each of his three wives; was pals with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; has been accused by more than 20 women of sexual misconduct; and was found liable by a civil jury last year for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s.
Even Scott’s aggressive opposition to LGBTQ rights — from denouncing samesex marriage to introducing a bill to restrict federal funding for elementary and middle schools that allow trans kids to use preferred pronouns without parental consent — has never been enough to quell speculation about his private life.
But with a woman by his side as a banner of Scott’s heterosexuality, perhaps those whispers won’t be as prominent as he vies to be Trump’s running mate. Other contenders include Republican Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, who calls jailed Jan. 6 insurrectionists “hostages”; Vivek Ramaswamy, whose terrible campaign flamed out after a dismal showing in Iowa; and Governor Doug Burgum of North Dakota, whose sole purpose in the presidential race seemed to be positioning himself to get on Trump’s VP pick list.
Trump doesn’t want a running mate as much as he wants a toady whose submission to him is above reproach. In that respect, Scott, who voted with the former president more than 90 percent of the time, certainly qualifies. And as a Black man, he would also be used as a counterweight to accusations of Trump’s racism.
It’ll be months before anyone knows whether any of this was enough to let Scott emerge as the veep-stakes winner. But whatever else happens in Scott’s quest to shed his Republican-vexing bachelorhood, at least he’ll always have his “soulmate.”