AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley announces that Rep. Tim Scott will replace Jim DeMint in the Senate during a news conference at the South Carolina Statehouse on Monday.
For Republicans who believe the tea party is responsible for the GOP's struggles, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s decision to choose Rep. Tim Scott to replace Jim DeMint in the Senate would have come as a stunner. The nation’s second Indian-American governor appointed the only African-American who will be serving in the Senate come 2013.
And not only are they both Republicans, they are tea party-aligned conservatives who took on the party establishment and won.
For Republicans who believe the tea party is responsible for the GOP's struggles, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s decision to choose Rep. Tim Scott to replace Jim DeMint in the Senate would have come as a stunner. The nation’s second Indian-American governor appointed the only African-American who will be serving in the Senate come 2013.
And not only are they both Republicans, they are tea party-aligned conservatives who took on the party establishment and won.
It’s ironic that at a time when party strategists are publicly panicking over the party’s need to diversify or face extinction, they’re blind to the reality that if it wasn’t for the much-maligned tea party, the Republican Party would be even more homogeneous than it is today.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/columns/against-the-grain/republican-diversity-fueled-by-tea-party-20121217
