Last week, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott announced the creation of an exploratory committee to run for president in 2024. Scott is the only Republican African American in the Senate.

The 2020 Republican presidential primary seems destined to be a titanic battle between former president Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida.  

Why would any presidential hopeful enter this race between King Kong and Godzilla, when they would be nothing, but a mouse trampled to death by the two behemoths?

Most Republican presidential candidates enter the 2024 race knowing they have little to no chance of winning, they have other motives for entering the fray. They may be auditioning to be the winner’s running mate; they hope to do just well enough to be perceived as a viable vice president. Others are expecting to become part of the eventual nominee’s Cabinet, and the rest believe that their quixotic campaign will burnish their brand name and help them to sell books and land lucrative speaking engagements.

Scott is cognizant that as a black man he has little chance of becoming the Republican presidential nominee of a party riddled with racism. He would never leave his influential perch on the Senate to join an administration, and he doesn’t need the publicity of running for president to increase his value as an author or a speaker.

Scott is running for president hoping that the winner, which he expects to be Trump, will choose him as his running mate. During Trump’s administration, Scott frequently appeared by the president’s side, gratuitously flashing his Uncle Tom smile. Scott would be comfortable in the subservient role as the vice president of a narcissist egomaniac.

Scott knows that the only way he will become president is if Trump chooses him as his running mate, they win the general election, and then the morbidly obese septuagenarian dies while in office.