A clean cut black senator running to become the President of the United States.

No, it’s not a throwback to 2008 when Barack Obama announced his candidature for the highest political office in America which at the time many viewed as highly unlikely. 

Tim Scott, at 57 with US$22 million so far in campaign funding, today (May 22) announced he is running for President which will see him taking on his buddy and fellow Republican, ex-President, Donald Trump.

There are no friends in politics, only alliances.

Scott is the Senator for South Carolina and is backed by the head of Oracle, billionaire Larry Ellison.

At his campaign launch, Tim Scott declared: “ I’m living proof that America is the land of opportunity, not a land of oppression. The truth of my life disproves their lies.

“Joe Biden and the radical left are attacking every rung of the ladder that helped me climb. We are not in decline. We are in Biden retreat. So all we need to do is turn around.”

It is expected to be a crowded Republican field with Nikki Haley and Donald Trump already in. Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Chris Christie and Chris Sununu are all expected to jump in.

Scott the grandson of a cotton picker once had a promising career playing football before an injury put paid to that. He decided to study politics.  He is a clean-cut politician-doesn’t drink, smoke, goes to church-squeaky clean.

Can he take on Trump and is he able to take the mauling that’s coming his way?

“The key question for me is, are you prepared to tell Donald Trump to shut the hell up and get out of the race? If he’s not ready to take on Donald Trump, then he’s not ready to be President,” said former Republican National Committee Chairman, Michael Steele.

So will black voters turn out in droves for Tim Scott? Will he have the same galvanising impact that Obama had in 2008?

That is doubtful.

Speaking in the Reagan Library last year, Scott said: “Americans are losing one oof the most inspirational truths we have, which is hope – hope that things can and will get better, hope that education and hard work can equal prosperity, hope that we remain a city on a hill, a shining example of what can be when free people decide to join hands in self-governance.”