In Search of Tim Scott’s Girlfriend

Ben Terris: “I wasn’t interested in laundering innuendos for this Republican operative. At the same time, the whole exchange left me intrigued about how voter interest (or lack thereof) in Scott’s love life (or lack thereof) might illuminate the politics of marriage, family and masculinity in today’s GOP. Donald Trump scrambled the values of the ‘family values’ party to such a degree that the base kept loving him despite the “locker-room talk” about grabbing women and the allegation — which Trump denies — that he had cheated on his third wife with a porn star.”

“And yet, for all the conventional wisdom that went out the door when Trump walked in, a long-held belief persists: that the absence of a wife and kids would make voters uneasy, especially the kind who vote in Republican primaries. Was that still true?”

He finally asked Scott in an interview: “He wouldn’t tell me her name, and the campaign declined to make her available to chat, even off the record. Technically I can’t verify that she exists, except to note that for a presidential campaign to essentially reverse-catfish America would be insane.”