| South Carolina Senator Tim Scott surprised many—including some of his campaign staff—on Sunday Night when he told Trey Gowdy with Fox News that he was dropping out of the race for president. Struggles in the polls and with generating new donors made it unlikely that the senator would be able to qualify for the next Republican debate, so Sunday’s news was seen by most as an eventuality.
Still, Scott began the race with one of the most substantial war chests in the primary and ended September with $14 million remaining, a figure he recently claimed was “the most money of any candidate running for president other than Donald Trump.” The hope was that his reserves would allow him to continue after others were forced to drop out, giving him the chance to make up ground in a narrower field. However, the combination of relatively poor debate performances and fellow South Carolinian Nikki Haley emerging as the chief rival to both Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis left Scott without a clear path to improvement.
So now he returns his focus to the Senate and takes his message of positivity and hope with him. That message has been somewhat lacking among the other candidates in the election, but, as one of Scott’s supporters lamented, such optimism is “not where the Republican base is right now.”
To be honest, though, it’s not where most of the country seems to be either.
A recent poll showed that 63 percent of Americans are very or somewhat pessimistic about “the moral and ethical standards in our country” while only 12 percent said they had “quite a lot” of confidence in the nation’s future.
In short, if Tim Scott’s message of positivity failed to resonate with voters, it is likely because there’s simply not much to be positive about in the views of most Americans.
But, as lamentable as that perception may be, there are far worse fates for a country than a disenchanted populace. |
