Did You Know...

**Written by Doug Powers

Conservative South Carolina Rep. Tim Scott’s name was at or near the top of most lists of likely replacements for outgoing Sen. Jim DeMint, and SC Gov. Haley will indeed name Scott as DeMint’s successor:

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is expected to name Rep. Tim Scott as the replacement for outgoing Sen. Jim DeMint, Fox News has learned.

Haley is slated to announce her decision at noon on Monday at the Statehouse. Scott was elected to Congress in the 2010 Republican wave. Haley’s selection would make him the first black U.S. senator from South Carolina.

State law gives the Republican governor sole authority to pick DeMint’s successor. DeMint, considered an ideological godfather of the tea party movement, announced less than two weeks ago that he would resign Jan. 1 to take the helm of the Heritage Foundation, a national conservative think tank.

Haley’s appointee will fill the seat until 2014, when voters will choose who will fill the remaining two years of DeMint’s term.

As the USA Today reported here, Scott will become the first African-American senator from the south since Reconstruction.

Here’s a little more about Tim Scott, including a piece of biographical information that might chap the rumps of certain mayors:

Scott, 47, was elected in 2010 to represent a U.S. House district in the Charleston area. A former member of the South Carolina state Legislature, Scott quickly became a favorite of House Speaker John Boehner and GOP officials in Washington and served in a leadership position for the 2010 freshman class.

He has a compelling life story, according to his biography in the Almanac of American Politics. Scott and his siblings were raised by a single mother who worked as a nurse’s assistant. By his own account, Scott was on the brink of flunking out of high school when the owner of a Chick-fil-A franchise took him under his wing. He later earned a partial football scholarship to college, and ran an insurance company and owned part of a real-estate agency before entering politics.

And yes, the predictable reactions to Scott’s appointment have ensued.

Update: NBC’s Luke Russert roots out the lede for the rest of the MSM:

With Scott going to the Senate and Allen West losing, the 113th Congress will see no African-American Republicans in the House.

— Luke Russert (@LukeRussert) December 17, 2012

Russert’s Tweet that will probably find its way into the folder of MSM talking points got a response that we probably won’t hear on any of the nightly newscasts:

.@lukerussert how many African Americans in the Senate are democrats?

— Sean Hannity’s Hair (@SHannitysHair) December 17, 2012

Update II: Here’s video of Gov. Haley introducing Tim Scott as successor to Jim DeMint:

**Written by Doug Powers

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