While the news seems to be centered on African-American conservative angst over Senator Obama, I still managed to find something that stills highlights Black achievement occurring on the right. Check out this brief snippet, again courtesy of the LA Times:
Tim Scott, a businessman who also chairs the Charleston County Council, won his party's nomination for a seat in the state's House of Representatives. He faces no Democratic opposition in the general election, setting the stage for him to become the first black Republican to serve in South Carolina's Legislature since Reconstruction ended in 1877.
In writing about Scott's achievement, the State newspaper in Columbia, S.C., reported that when Scott takes office, South Carolina will be "on par with Georgia" as the only Deep South state where the ranks of state legislators include black Republicans.
And for more specifics on Mr. Scott's accomplishment, here's yet another excerpt, thanks to Fitsnews.com:
A strange thing happened in the middle of rural, predominantly white South Carolina last night. For the first time since Reconstruction (i.e. right after the Civil War, people), they elected a black Republican.
Charleston County Council Chairman Tim Scott never made a big deal about that fact - he ran on a conservative, reform-minded platform encapsulated by one of the best campaign slogans we’ve heard in a long time, “Taxpayers First.”
We first met Tim last Christmas, when he invited us down to North Charleston to attend a benefit he organized for Brittany Riffe, a Lowcountry teenager who was paralyzed in a car crash last summer.
Right away, we knew this guy was something special, and the more we learned about his stellar fiscal conservative record on County Council, the more we hoped he’d be able to bring that common sense approach to government in Columbia.
But given that Tim was running against not one, but two White Republicans (one of whom received the endorsement of outgoing Rep. Thomas “Doc” Dantzler) in a predominantly white district, we feared that voters in this largely rural part of the state would select “one of their own” to represent them.
Well, they proved us wrong … electing Tim with 53% of the vote, one of two races last night that went a long way toward restoring our faith in the political process.
Just as Tom Davis’ stunning victory over status quo incumbent Catherine Ceips proved that voters could see beyond a barrage of dirty tricks and negative attacks, Tim’s historic victory proved they could see beyond the color of a man’s skin as well.
And make no mistake, “Mr. History” (who is unopposed in the general election) isn’t going to Columbia to sit back and play the “token” black Republican.
Click on the link for the FitsNews.com piece in its entirety:
Mr. History
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