SC senator speaks of ‘new American sunrise’
DES MOINES, Iowa – As Sen. Tim Scott weighs mounting a 2024 presidential candidacy, the Republican was in Iowa on Wednesday delivering a message of “a new American sunrise,” articulating a positive vision that sets him apart from some possible rivals who have focused more on railing against cultural divides.
“I see 330 million Americans getting back to celebrating our shared blessings again, tolerating our differences again, and having each other’s backs again,” Scott said in a speech to about 100 students and curious Republicans at Drake University in Des Moines. “We need new leaders who will lift us up, not tear us down.”
If he follows through with a campaign, the South Carolinian’s upbeat style could distinguish him during a GOP primary. Many of Scott’s fellow Republicans who have courted Iowa’s influential evangelical conservatives in recent weeks have focused on themes such as denying systemic racism in the U.S. or curbing transgender rights.
Scott, the Senate’s sole Black Republican, doesn’t shy away from such terrain. He has in the past railed against “woke superiority.” But in the speech, he described a “new American sunrise. Even brighter than before.”
Such a goal requires collaboration he says is missing in government and around the country.
“I see a future where common sense has rebuilt common ground, where we’ve created real unity, not by compromising away our conservatism, but by winning converts to our conservatism,” he said.
That nod toward inclusion has generally been absent from other Republicans who have recently swung through Iowa, which is poised to hold the first contest in next year’s push for the GOP presidential nomination. Shortly after launching her presidential campaign last week, Nikki Haley was in suburban Des Moines stoking contempt for “woke ideology” and arguing “a national self-loathing has taken over our country.”
It’s not as if Scott steered clear of similar criticism.
“If you wanted a blueprint to ruin America, you’d keep doing exactly what Joe Biden has let the far left do to our country for the last two years,” Scott said.