Interesting comment on Allen West.
West was in a swing district. It was one that a conservative can win, as long as his tone is more moderate, or if that conservative ran in a wave year.
Scott is in a conservative district. Which means he could do what he wanted. He’s just naturally less bombastic.
Just my two cents.
Yeah, I’m just looking at it from the big picture/racial politics angle. Having lost most of the ideological battles over the years, there is in my opinion nothing more important for the left at this time than maintaining the narrative that the GOP is a bunch of “racist, sexist homophobes” with the Tea Party being practically indistinguishable from the KKK. The elections of Allen West and Tim Scott in 2010 destroyed that narrative at least as it relates to blacks, but they came after Allen West the hardest because of his higher profile. Tim Scott better get ready, because they’ll be coming at him now with everything they’ve got.
“Scott is in a conservative district. Which means he could do what he wanted. Hes just naturally less bombastic.”
It’s also true, though, that liberals didn’t see as much upside in trying to bait Congressman Scott, whom they had almost no chance of defeating, while they knew that they could beat West if he spoke out enough in his slightly Democrat-leaning CD (or, it turns out, in the slightly Republican-leaning CD to which he moved for the 2012 election).