I'm an ordinary guy serving an extraordinary God - and that makes the difference.
I think the question is who am I? That's what we all should be asking ourselves. Who am I? Well, if I am first a Christian conservative then that dictates my response to all questions so my response first as a Christian conservative is to vote consistent with my value system.
I don't necessarily believe there's a message in the fact that I'm an African-American Republican. I think there is a message that America as a whole, we are now awake. We are looking at a political construct and we're fairly disappointed. I think the message is no matter where you come from in this country, there is great potential.
If you look at the fact that the best chance we have for a good economy is the private sector. The government cannot create jobs. If the government could create jobs, then Communism would have worked. But didn't work. So what we have to do is allow the private sector and the entrepreneurial spirit to lead us back to a job-filled recovery.
I'm not looking to be dominating all the media outlets ... to talk about any issue just to be on TV, I'm not your guy. I'm not going to be 'the black Republican'. I'm going to be a Republican who happens to be black who will talk about issues that I'm passionate about that are specific to the agenda that I want to accomplish.
Is Romney a tea party candidate? I'd probably say that he's the least of the candidates running for president right now that would be considered a tea party candidate.
As I have traveled throughout my Congressional district, the one thing I heard loud and clear was simply please stop spending money you do not have, rein in spending, live within a budget.
As a small business owner for the last 15 years, when I think of what truly changed my life, it was my faith, a strong family, my mom did a really, really good job of encouraging me in very clear and discernible ways.
There is nothing special about Tim Scott. I'm an ordinary guy serving an extraordinary God and that makes the difference.
We do not have a revenue problem in D.C. or this county. We have a prioritization problem. When you create the priorities you fund the priorities of the country and you stop spending money when you get to zero.
South Carolina is a great place to be from.
But in my life, the vast majority of people that have really afforded me the opportunity to succeed were white folks.
There are good people and bad people in all organizations fundamentally however, when you look at the basis of the Tea Party it has nothing to do with race. It has to do with an economic recovery. It has to do with limiting the role of our government in our lives. It has to do with free markets.
I see myself as a person who wants to serve the constituents within my district and find a way to move those who are not in our position philosophically to our position.
I have campaigned all over the state of South Carolina. It is the friendliest state in the country. And truly here people judge you by the content of your character not the color of your skin.
But the question we should ask ourselves is, who is the next visionary leader of America? How do we have the aspiration and inspire Americans to reach their highest level? We need a president that does so.
Certainly I feel like I'm the tip of the arrow at times because certainly the national media wants to talk about the fact that I'm a black Republican and some people think of that as zany that a black person would be a conservative but to me what is zany is any person black, white, red, brown or yellow not being a conservative.
I just dove into the Scriptures and started memorizing different scriptures and started becoming as much as possible a part of the scripture. I wanted it to be grafted into my heart.
Part of the challenge of being a black Republican anywhere is that you start off with people walking in with chips on their shoulder trying to figure out what is wrong with you.
I know that my grandfather is 92 years old. And he has seen this country evolve in amazing ways. He looks at South Carolina and he says, wow, what an amazing state that we have the blessing to live within because of the evolution.
