Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina leaves the Senate on December 31st. Replacing him will be Congressman Tim Scott. Yesterday, Governor Nikki Haley made the announcement that she would choose Congressman Scott for the replacement.Governor Haley and the future Senator called me Friday Monday* morning before the announcement was made. Governor Haley emphasized that Senator Scott would be as independent as Senator DeMint. In fact, Congressman Scott presently is in the House leadership and maintains a consistently higher Heritage Action rating than most members of leadership and, at 88%, is well higher than the House average.Governor Haley and Congressman Scott both were insistent that Congressman Scott is not a diversity pick. He’s a conservative pick by a conservative Governor to represent a conservative state. But it can’t help but be noticed that in 2013 the only black Senator will be a Republican from the state wherein the first shots of the Civil War were fired.I have long noted that the Tea Party, which pushed both Nikki Haley and Tim Scott as candidates, is far more diverse than the Republican establishment. Josh Kraushaar also notices this over at National Journal.The much maligned and supposed bigoted tea party backed Ted Cruz against David Dewhurst, Marco Rubio against Charlie Crist, Tim Scott against a number of challengers in his 2010 congressional race, Allen West, and more. As a result of the Tea Party, the GOP has a much more diverse bench than if its party leaders were left to their own devices.Tim Scott is no Jim DeMint. He will, undoubtedly and perhaps a bit disappointingly, work more with the Senate Republican Leaders who helped get us to $16 trillion in national debt and opposed tea party picks like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz and even Pat Toomey, Rand Paul, and Mike Lee. Tim Scott will also be his own man and presents another young face for the Republican Party. It stands as a remarkable achievement in the history of this nation that the city of Charleston, SC, to which one must travel to get to Ft. Sumter, would put Tim Scott in the United States House of Representatives. It is as remarkable that the State of South Carolina, so often painted as an unrepentant hotbed of secessionist bigots by the left, would elevate Tim Scott to the United States Senate. This is a good pick.*So, having dealt with a house eaten up with the stomach bug since Sunday, my days are all jumbled. I was called yesterday morning, which was a Monday, not a Friday, which is what I wrote and which sent the press into a tizzy. Typo people, calm down. If you’d cleaned as many buckets of four year old throw up in the past few days as I had, you’d be all jumbled up too. Sorry for the error. My fault entirely.