I wrote a post here at Hail To You titled “Tim Scott, a ‘national leader’ in the Multicultacracy,” ten years ago, back when he (the Black politician Tim Scott of South Carolina) was given his political debut. He was then appointed to the U.S. Senate by “Nikki” Haley-nee-Kaur-Randhawa. The latter had somehow been elected South Carolina governor two years earlier.
It’s interesting now to revisit this late-2012 commentary — as both these people, Tim Scott and Nikki Haley-Kaur-Randhawa, are second-tier presidential candidates for the Republicans, as shown and discussed in my recent post: “The 2024 Republican nomination — betting market update, May 2023 — Trump 50%, DeSantis 28%, Other 22%.”
Both of these individuals are positioned as important second-tier presidential candidates for 2024, after their entry into politics in the early 2010s as minor “bush-league” figures (just after the capital-B Bush era ended). Both may be products of the “Tea Party movement” of the time. It’s as if they were, have been, groomed for their positions and for national leadership. That was the main theme of my 2012 post on the meaning of Tim Scott. The man was being spoken of immediately as a “national leader”, in late 2012, upon his appointment to the U.S. Senate, by Haley. Out of nowhere…
This would seem to say something about Regime politics.
TIM SCOTT, “national Leader,” 2013-?
NPR: “The choice is full of firsts — Scott will be the only African-American in the Senate, the first black Republican in the Senate in decades, and only the second since Reconstruction. The one-term congressman immediately becomes a national figure”.
David Woodward, a Clemson University professor: “I think he [Tim Scott] represents an opportunity for conservatives to rally behind somebody who could be a national leader.”
A national leader!
An obscure, one-term Congressman. A graduate of a third-rate university (his alma-mater, Charleston Southern, ranks 15th of the 20 colleges in South Carolina in terms of enrolled-student SAT scores; the average attendee did not even manage 500 per section on the SAT).
NIKKI HALEY (nee Nimrata Kaur Randhawa), champion of ‘minority’ advancement
Why did Governor Haley appoint this man?
Nikki Haley, Governor of South Carolina:
“It is very…
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Mr. Hail, I am glad you are posting some more. Time really flies, as I wouldn’t have guessed that Tim Scott of S. Carolina has been in office a decade already.
I agree with you that Senator Scott is being groomed in some way. This reminds me of the meteoric rise of Øb☭ma. The R candidate for Senator from Illinois running against Øb☭ma was Jack Ryan, whose campaign was derailed by some sex scandal with records from his divorced wife conveniently released after 5 years. Øb☭ma won that election and was suddenly a top candidate for the D nomination. Grooming…
I’m glad this guy is at the bottom, but I’m even more glad that Nikki (Traitor – SC) is.
See, now I’ve ragged on Trump enough, but still, why’d he send this anti-American lady to America’s top post in the UN? That’d have been great if it was really 5-D chess (Trump would be doing well to win at 2-D checkers), helping a decent guy to take the SC Governorship and putting Nimrata Kaur-Randhawa in the UN right before getting the US the f__k out of it! In the voice of Butthead, “that’d be cool.”
Actually, as it stands, Tim Scott could be classified as a second-tier candidate. “At the bottom,” in the third-tier, are a range of others. (See my three-tier classification system for the candidates, as of May 2023, based on the PredictIt betting-market data.)
There are a lot of real-money bettors who think the non-entity Tim Scott could be the Republican nominee for 2024, not just that he is running for a cabinet position, or vice president, as some believe.
Yes, that’s true that Tim Scott is not in that 3rd tier. (I did read that other post of yours.) I should say I’m glad he’s nowhere near the top.
There’s a timely article on VDare about Tim Scott – it came out last night or today: Tim Scott Worst Possible Pick For GOP/GAP In 2024. That’s Why Donors Like Him Washington Watcher II, the writer, does a nice thorough job on this, as the VDare writers almost always do.
Just the start:
Jim Demint was a world better than Tim Scott or Miss Lindsey. He quit and went to a think tank. Well, that sure doesn’t show a lot of spirit of “public service”! That screwed over SC.
I really like this part: who was Affirmatively Acted into the Senate. Yep, and now I supposed that’s the Black Senator seat for SC, the other being held long-term by the detestable Grahamnesty.
Here’s more, but I ask you and your readers to read all of Mr. “Watcher II”‘s article:
I don’t want him being a Senator, much less President!
VDare is heavy with links, if you want more background. This is a usual thing for that site too.
I don’t read VDare daily, but actually I did happen to see that article yesterday. Thanks for bringing it in here. You are right to highlight it.
BTW, VDare’s WWII IS worried that Scott will be picked for VP slot for diversity reasons. He IS more coherent and serious than the CamelToe, but I sure hope this doesn’t happen.
What are we to make of why Tim Scott is performing so well in the betting markets, if people can see through his act so easily? Is there anything to it other than that he’s Black?
Good question, Mr. Hail. The betting market does sound like a good way to measure support, as no matter what their politics, people don’t like to lose money on bets.
However, it probably depends on how much money. The serious betters – serious for money-making or serious for the entertainment value of betting* – care about the money over their OWN political wants, but how about the small-time bets? Do you have an idea on any of this, what the betting amounts are?
I could see someone like me throwing in 10 or 20 bucks just to “support my guy”, bringing up his numbers in the very stats you give us and then there’s that little bonus if he wins too. (My Dad would buy us toys if the GOP Pres. candidate won. Like we could do squat about it, but at least we’d be on his side cheering … or not cheering…)
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* Not my thing at all. The worst are the State lotteries, which, beyond being usurpations of the free market in gambling, are nothing but a taxes on stupidity. These a-holes hold me up in line at the gas station too! [end mini-rant]
It is said that hundreds of millions of dollars have been traded on some of the political-prediction betting markets at PredictIt. However, there is a limit of buy-in on any one prediction market of $850. Since the creators and administraotrs of PredictIt originally conceived it as a source of data driven by the market, the $850 limit per person could be to block and attempt to ‘game’ the system by a campaign buying huge stock in itself.
The prolific Sailer commenter Dave Pinsen has said he bought stock in PredictIt in years past. He has said that he made more money than he’d lost in those markets. I think his day-job is as some kind of New York investor-trader type, so it’s something he feels comfortable in, and of course just a hobby.
The $850/person limit makes this market a mix of something driven by public opinion and by market forces driven by money gains/losses. If you max-out an $850 bet on a low-chance candidate and he wins, you can make many thousands of dollars. This can go into serious money if a bettor plays multiple similar markets (for example, “who will win the x state primary?”).
The second-biggest market right now is: “Who will win the 2024 U.S. presidential election?” and so someone convinced DeSantis can win could max-bet on him in both markets, $1700. There are a total of ten prediction-markets on U.S. elections open, such as “Will there be a woman president elected in 2024?” And again if you are time-traveler returning from 12:01pm EST, Jan. 20th, 2025, having witnessed DeSantis sworn in as president before hitting the “go back in time” button on your time-travel device, you can bet on all the relevant markets for the outcome implied by DeSantis winning (e.g., “Kamala Harris 47th U.S. president? Yes/No”; “Which party wins U.S. presidency: Dem/Rep”…).
I’ve never bought any ‘stock’ in any of these political betting-markets, but I do have an interest in the data they produce.
The prices for each candidate are determined just as stocks are, except for that $850-per-person limit. The trading-prices, based on money flowing in and out — and therefore the implied-chances-to-win the Republican nomination that I calculated, derived from those prices — are based on total money traded on the bet that the candidate will win.
There are a few possible sources of bias or irrationality in this system, just as there can be in the “real” stock market. Buying low and selling high can be more of a goal more than the ostensible goal of predicting the right winner.
The people putting money on Tim Scott: Their money still has him as the head of the second-tier candidates. Between May 19 and May 27, 2023, people were heavily trading “Tim Scott” stock in this betting-market. It was heavy buying and selling but leaned toward buying, and that shored Tim Scott up from an earlier 4% to pushing near-7% in implied-chance to win the R nomination.
In walking through this, I think I’ve talked myself into an explanation for why Tim Scott’s price rose. People don’t actually expect him to win, but they do expect his price to rise, and if it rises enough, they can sell at a small profit. The sums involved are not huge, but the type of person likely playing this particular market is treating it a little like a video-game, and profits are like points in the video-game.
I am left with the theory that the Tim Scott candidacy resembles, thematically, a pyramid-scheme. A classic feature of a pyramid-scheme is that which the organizers and promoters say is their goal is not really their goal, and hype can benefit a few insiders, before the scheme falls apart.