This Olbermann interview, which includes some off-camera coaching, seems to be getting the most attention for South Carolina’s next United States Senator, Alvin Greene. At least this video (and this one at a Charleston paper) show that Jim DeMint’s new opponent can conduct an interview in his own words:
That said, he’s an awful candidate. He broke FEC rules by not filing a campaign finance report, even though he spent more than $5,000 on his campaign (the filing fee alone was $10,400). He acknowledges that he was discharged from the armed services involuntarily, but says he got an honorable discharge. He’s accused of sneaking into a dorm common area and showing pornographic pictures to an 18 year-old girl at the University of South Carolina. And he’s awfully damn vague about where and how he campaigned.
I’ve seen a lot of shitty primary candidates in my time, so I’m ready to buy that a relatively inarticulate nobody with a closet full of skeletons would spend $10K on a quixotic run for Senate. What feels off about Greene is his complete lack of excitement and engagement. Usually a nut who’s going to blow his last dollar on a campaign does it for some crazy reason that animates them, and they talk about it incessantly. Greene has none of that. Put that together with his resume, and I smell a ratfuck.
stuckinred
Quacks like a duck don’t it?
Hunter Gathers
Which, by the new Conservative Rules we all must abide by, makes you a racist. Where the fuck did an unemployed individual get 10 grand to file, anyway?
WereBear
This is as obvious as Mount Rushmore replacing Lincoln’s head with that of Homer Simpson.
He can’t even speak articulately about his campaign! I think mistermix nailed it; no enthusiasm, no understanding, no there there.
geg6
Lee Atwater is giggling his ass off from the grave. May he rot badly.
Comrade Javamanphil
But why? DeMint was going to win no matter who ran against him. Does DeMint have some goat mistresses in his closet he doesn’t want to talk about? Is it irresponsible to speculate? It would be irresponsible not to!
Regular Reader
This notion some people have that Greene is a “plant” or a “rat” is pretty illogical. Are we to assume that whoever was behind this “plant” decided their winning strategy was to pick an unknown individual with no political experience and a felony conviction, have him file to run, then not make any public appearances, not campaign, not raise money, and then win the primary through unknown reasons?
Keith G
I am assuming they will be able to trace the $10,000. And I am also assuming a good prosecutor can craft a deal (in light of his previous record) with more weight than the hush money he has waiting for him if he were to remain silent.
I hate to say this, but his race and economic level make it more likely that the case will get the attention needed to find the truth.
Will
South Carolina politics is notoriously fucked up. The entire state’s political class has the ethics of a methhead used car salesman.
Why would you put up a fake candidate for a sure seat? I dunno. The only thing I can think of is that a crappy enough ringer ensures that there won’t be any dark horse surprises from a real candidate. It also might be a way of gumming up the works to prevent real candidates from gaining experience and attention.
It’s the way that a lot of totalitarian societies maintain the illusion of democracy. Run your True Leader against some chump you set up for a fall, and you can call yourself a democracy.
The Grand Panjandrum
I’m gonna run for Senate because I’m high
I’m campaigning all wrong because I’m high
and if I don’t get elected I know why (why man?) yea heyy,
– cause I’m high, cause I’m high, cause I’m high.
4tehlulz
@Comrade Javamanphil: Nixon didn’t have to do Watergate either, but he was paranoid enough to need to.
Will
On that note, I wonder if taking away the asterisk mark of “ran unopposed” is worth $10k to a party. I’ve seen it used as an insult before, so maybe it is.
thruppence
Were the votes
hackedcounted by Diebold machines?El Cid
Via RumpRoast, this is not a terrorist.
The real crime here is not letting a Real America citizen express his 2nd Amendment rights to take over a courthouse by armed force in order to protect the nation from a Kenyonesian usurper.
Can you imagine the threat our government offices might have faced if this had been a Muslim?
J.W. Hamner
What we’re missing is a motive.
Keith G
@Comrade Javamanphil: @Regular Reader:
There is a segment of the GOP that does not need a rational reason to rat fuck the opposition. As to the procedural logic of their methods, that is often elusive.
This guy is now going to have to explain to a county prosecutor how, after filing a affidavit of indigency in order to get a public defender, his unemployed self was able to lay hands on a $10,000 filing fee.
Morbo
@J.W. Hamner: Increase turnout.
El Cid
@J.W. Hamner: Money?
Soprano2
I’m listening to the interview now, and I’ll eat my hat if that guy isn’t a paid ringer who was put in the race for some reason that we don’t yet know.
Bill
I saw Olbermann’s interview of Greene on last night’s Countdown. I think I detected Greene seemingly listening to an invisible, and silent source of question-response-coaching.
Is this part of a Jim DeMint cunning plan?
Pat
Something is rotten in South Carolina. This is not the only candidate the Democratic State Party didn’t know about; there were two or three more.
The story out of California is even better. They managed to get a proposition on the ballot that would eliminate Primary Elections in California. Four million of the sixteen million eligible voters voted in last week’s Primary, and low and behold the majority of those four millions voters who made it to the polls voted IN FAVOR of eliminating Primary elections. How does that piece of democracy-in-action work for you?!?
J.W. Hamner
@El Cid:
Money makes sense as a motive for Alvin Greene, but what’s the reason somebody gave it to him? DeMint was never in danger… is it just a big practical joke?
@Morbo:
What do you mean? That people will come out to vote against him and it will help down ticket races? Interesting.
PeakVT
My guess is that Greene was encouraged to run just to embarrass the Democratic Party. They can point and laugh that a complete nobody won. The outstanding question is whether or not his backers were smart enough to cover their tracks properly.
Legalize
@Comrade Javamanphil:
Dry run.
Svensker
@El Cid:
No because Muslims are bad and scary and real Murkans are good even when they’re bad, plus shut up that’s why, also. Too.
And back to the OP — this guy cannot be for real. He’s got nuthin. Nada. Zip. Zero.
Ash Can
@El Cid: Take this exact same story and set it in Somalia or rural Colombia, with place and people names changed accordingly, and the same wingnuts would tsk-tsk over how uncivilized the brown folks are.
Rosalita
@Hunter Gathers:
Maybe his mommy gave it to him, he’s living at home after all
Terrell
I don’t get why some think he is a “plant”. If this candidate is so bad, doesn’t it say quite a bit about the Democratic candidate he beat (Rawl)?
If Rawl couldn’t beat this guy, then why should we expect him to beat Demint?
DanF
The “motive”, assuming he’s a plant, probably came in the primary. Vic Rawl was a civil and criminal judge – He probably pissed off more than one rich and/or powerful person in his tenure. So the motive may have been to deny Vic a chance to run. Now Greene is just going with his fifteen minutes.
Comrade Darkness
@J.W. Hamner: Increase WHITE turnout, specifically.
It works well because the serious dem candidate with all of 164k in the bank does not want to spend a dime of that on the primary. And on the flip side, the republican candidate can just dump his warchest on a colleague with a closer fight who needs it.
My social systems question is, do the republicans have to whisper to each other in church the sunday before “hey, remember to vote for the black guy on the dem line” or is it just well understood and everyone just smiles and nods.
The california open primary will put everyone on a single ballot, across parties. This kind of voting to screw the other party will come with far more risk there.
Rathskeller
I agree that this is a ratfuck, following a pattern they did in SC as recently as 1990. It’s an open primary in SC, so they find someone with a name that comes alphabetically before the real candidate, and then let general indifference and ignorance do the rest. That is, the dispirited Democratic voters in SC just pulled the lever for the first name on the Democratic ticket. Or maybe the ratfuckers passed the word to the GOP faithful, “DeMint is fine, just vote for anyone on the Democratic ticket except Vic Rawl.” You could have one talk radio guy spend a few days pounding that meme, and that could work. Rawl had an anemic and underfunded campaign, so a feather could have knocked him over.
Terrell
@Will:
But he wouldn’t have run unopposed. If Green hadn’t been there, Rawl would have been Demint’s opponent in November.
Morbo
@J.W. Hamner: Yes, exactly. It has been tried on the local level before. I did a cursory search for ballot initiatives for this year that turnout might help, but my google-fu is weak.
Johnny B
Am I the only one who thinks that the fault lay with the idiots who run the Democratic Party in South Carolina? If you don’t want a ratfuck to be your nominee in a statewide office, you might want to find someone with sufficient name recognition and talent to run for the position in the primary. If you don’t do that, then you should expect that the other party may be able to choose your candidate for you. To me, this isn’t as much a case of fraud as it is a case of idiocy. And the biggest idiots are the morons running the state party.
Violet
@PeakVT:
This.
The Dems look like utter idiots at this point. They’re accusing the guy of being a “plant” (whatever they might mean by that. Is he a Manchurian Candidate or something?), they’re exposing his failings. He’s being interviewed all over and exposing himself as barely qualified to work at Wally World, let alone represent a state as a Senator.
Everyone is shaking their heads in disbelief that this guy in the Dem candidate. No one believes his story. But the Dems let him run and didn’t run a good enough candidate against him so that somehow he won. What does that say about the Dems? Not a whole lot that is good.
pk
You know when all is said and done, if I had to vote, and the choice was between this guy and DeMint, I would still vote for this guy. The Dems might be able to brainwash this vegetable into voting for their causes, which would still make him a better choice than the evil DeMint.
cleek
Jim Geraghty at NRO makes a funny:
Napoleon
@Hunter Gathers:
Did you catch Olbermann ask him about the fact that he had an attorney appointed by the state to represent him. Do you see a conflict there?
Comrade Darkness
@Pat: You clearly haven’t read about the new California primary system. It’s brilliant. la times description. Say you have a crazy wingnut who is going to get 33% of the vote, and say you have an obnoxious dem wannabe with personal money to burn who won’t get the hell out of the race and let the usual dem take the seat and runs independent, splitting the vote and leaving some crazy ass in the seat. Some familiar?
Well, under the new system, it doesn’t matter about party loyalty. Top two winners go to the general election. This will help the dems, who are much worse at party discipline.
Added: it works better than the SC open primary in that any republican jumping lines to screw with the dems to try to mess up their candidate’s chances risks their own candidate not making it into the top two at all.
DanF
Also, why can’t we get this type of pit-bull questioning from an interviewer for other issues??
Comrade Darkness
@Violet: What does that say about the Dems?
Yeah, they definitely should have illegally blocked him from running.
Steaming Pile
@DanF: “Now Greene is just going with his fifteen minutes.”
Thing is, not only isn’t he enjoying his fifteen minutes, he seems barely aware that he’s getting them. Hell, he seems barely self-aware at all.
Something’s up. Nobody wants this kind of embarrassment put on themselves. Either he’s retarded (a likely assumption), or he’s being compensated by someone to make a fool of himself. I still want to know where the ten grand came from. I’m guessing some bank teller will be coming forward soon with a story about a guy who showed up with an inch-thick stack of hundred dollar bills. Or two or three visits to said bank with smaller amounts that wouldn’t arouse such suspicion.
stuckinred
@Steaming Pile: I’m thinking that the fact that he has an undergraduate degree from South Carolina and did 9 years in the military says that he is not retarded or challenged as we might say.
“After graduating from Manning High School in 1995, Greene received a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of South Carolina in 2000.[5][6] He served as an intelligence specialist and a unit supply specialist in the U.S. Army[7] and has served in the Air Force and Army national guards. He has received the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the Air Force Good Conduct Medal, the Korea Defense Service Medal and the National Defense Service Medal. Greene received an honorary but involuntary discharge from the Army in 2009 and has been unemployed since.[7]
[edit] Senate campaign” wiki
ruemara
You think an unemployed, inarticulate, borderline criminal black man won the Democratic nomination in an extremely safe republican seat on his own? I look at this fellow and see all the dog whistles, bells, air sirens, screaming irish tenors you can fit on a national stage. Ladies & gentlemen, this is what a racist sees when he looks at Barack Obama. They found this guy and put him up on the ballot to kill off a viable challenger, Rawl. And for all those up thread saying you needed a strong name recognition candidate, Rawl was, he was polled to win, this guy wasn’t on the radar. For once, don’t blame the local party when there’s a serious reason to believe in ratfucking. Jesus, people, if you file and pay the fee, you can run. That’s the law.
nyt
Yesterday Meyerson had an opinion piece about how primaries in California damn the Republicans because they have to adapt an anti immigrant stance.
So no more primaries in California
arguingwithsignposts
@stuckinred:
That’s two mighty big assumptions there. He might not be “challenged,” but a barely functioning adult could do both of those things.
ETA: if he does stay in the race, I would laugh my ass off if he were able to take down Jim DeMented.
stuckinred
@arguingwithsignposts: right
DanF
@Steaming Pile: Oddly, I believe him when he says the money was his. He doesn’t set off any bullshit detector when he answers that question. In fact, it seems to be the only question he answers straight.
It doesn’t make sense for DeMint to play dirty politics for a seat he is going to win in a walk-away (unless he’s fucking a boy). If it were Lindsay Graham, I’d suspect something foul play – but again – in the primary. So if there is a ratfuck going on, it was for the primary and the target was Rawl. Embarrassing the Democratic Party is likely a side benefit for whomever put him up to it.
And you’re right that Greene doesn’t seem to understand that this is his fifteen minutes. A smart reporter would check on Greene’s finances/job situation after the election.
keestadoll
“…together with his resume, and I smell a ratfuck.”
Oh noooooooo. Ya think??
cleek
what bugs me is not that he ran, but that he won.
i’m expecting to hear about vote-counting shenanigans more than i’m expecting to hear about candidate-planting shenanigans.
tom hilton
And yet I would still vote for greene over demint…in a heartbeat.
Will
The man doesn’t even appear capable of SMILING. What kind of politician is that emotionally remote? What is he going to act like when he actually runs into a VOTER? That thousand-yard stare isn’t exactly a charm offensive.
stuckinred
@Will: It’s the pucker factor.
rickstersherpa
yes, it was probably a “ratfuck.” It is the one thing conservatives and the Confederate party are really good at (see O;Keefe and Breitbart the destruction of ACORN). But after 40 years of dealing with it the Democrats still remind me of Lincoln’s remark on Rosecrans about him behaving as a stun duck. They are always “surprised.”
Clyburn is all upset now, but if he cared more building a competive, multi-racial Democratic State Party organization in South Carolina, the last 10 years instead of having a safe Congressional district for himself, then this would not have happen. Further, Obama, Rahm Emmanuel, and Tim Kaine, trying to undue all of Howard Dean’s state party building because, well they don’t like Dr. Dean, has not gone real well has it. Plenty to blame to go around on this one and as a result the people of South Carolina, white and black, are going to be represented by someone who thinks most of them should go back to being slaves and who is a freaking idiot as well, Jim Demint.
Violet
@Comrade Darkness:
I wasn’t suggesting this at all. But the Dems didn’t run another candidate that was good enough to beat this guy. That’s what I was talking about.
At this point, the Dems are trying to convince him to withdraw from running. That seems even worse to me. He won the primary. Unless it’s proven he did something illegally or isn’t eligible, he should be allowed to run. Running around screaming “Republican plant!” doesn’t do the Dems any favors.
Comrade Darkness
@Violet: You missed the part about his votes coming from republicans. Nate Silver is working on the numbers on this, apparently, breaking down votes by district.
@stuckinred: I agree. Inarticulate and lacking nuance would be my assessment. Real politicians are slick slick operators if they are successful, even those who are well-meaning.
cat48
@Violet:
I voted for Rawls. I recd emails from the State Party & they endorsed him for the Senate. The local paper said the State Party did not get around to checking on Greene after he registered so it was F’d up in Columbia.
eemom
this is well put:
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/2010_elections/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2010/06/11/defending_alvin_greene
He can’t possibly be any stupider, more ignorant or less qualified than Sarah Palin. Also too.
ricky
So why are we beating up on this Doofus who did nothing more than put his name on the ballot and not the 60% of the Democratic electorate in South Carolina who voted for him? Rat masturbation in my opinion.
kay
@Violet:
That’s how state parties work, though. It’s the reward for the most active members. They weigh in. They feel they own a piece of it, and they have larger objectives. They may know they’re going to lose this race, but they have other state races they want to win.
It won’t just be an individual candidate, it’s a “ticket”. They’re afraid he’ll drive down the ticket, and they can’t not invite him to group events.
What he gives up in return for state party support is some of his control. He’s actually on a “team”.
djork
Not very familiar with USC, are we? (rimshot)
I kid. Both of my parents went there and even though I went to Clemson (USC’s arch instate rival), I was raised a Gamecock fan and shall die one.
Steaming Pile
@stuckinred: OK, so he was thrown out of the S-2 section and sent down to the headquarters company supply section, where all he had to do is carry boxes. As for the fruit salad on his uniform, the only medal listed that was for actual merit was the Good Conduct Medal. Wanna know what you get that for? Not getting court-martialed or offered an Article 15 for three years straight. So, if you divide the number of years of service by three, then compare the integer portion of that number with the number of awards of the GCM, you begin to get a better picture of the quality of his service. The remainder of those medals were of the “I was (sort of) there” variety.
And finally, an undergraduate degree from U. of South Carolina hardly carries much weight, even if it is in “political science.” I mean, look at your typical South Carolina politician (see DeMint, Jim). As a credential, it’s probably the best thing he has, but so what? It’s not like I could get a four year degree in, say, computer science, and land a job as the CEO of Microsoft right out of school.
So if he’s not retarded (I refuse to use the term “challenged.”), then why does he talk like one, other than the obvious, which was that he was woefully ill-prepared to give an interview. I’m not a genius, but I think I’d do a better job talking to Keith Olbermann on a day’s notice.
Cyrus
@cleek:
I agree. That’s the thing that I’m still not understanding in all this even after reading this thread and most of the Post and Courier article.
Open primaries make it possible for a joke candidacy like Alvin Greene to win, but still not actually plausible. For all that people complain about the potential for
abuse of open primariesstrategic voting, it’s still pretty damn rare. And it looks like Greene spent literally zero time or even money on campaigning. Are we supposed to believe he based 100.00 percent of his campaign on the alphabetic advantage and still won by 20 percent of the vote?Bill Section 147
Why would they do this?
Why did Nixon spend so much time ruining McGovern after spending so much time making sure McGovern was the opponent?
It is possible this is all serendipity. But…
This guy is now going to be used as the Republican stereotype of the black man. This guy is now going to be used as the Republican stereotype of the Democrat. The fact that he went to college and served in the military actually improve his usefulness. Did he actually have the grades and the skill to get accepted? We all know the truth does not matter – affirmative action will be the narrative (Obama even gets that treatment – you know we only voted for him out of white guilt). Did he really get out of the Army honorably? Again truth is not relevant as the involuntary nature of his discharge can and will be attributed to whatever hate you want to put on it.
Sadly for this guy, whether he is a plant or just a weird anomaly, he will be derided, ridiculed and humiliated. And beware Democrats and Liberals. If you try to make sense of his candidacy or even speak of it, it will be because you are a secret racist.
Regardless of how this happened it is so full of win for the Republicans. Are Republicans the masters of mind-fu? Are Democrats really that stupid? Do Liberals actually hate black people? Which party is the party of corrupt felons?
JoyceH
@ricky:
Speaking just for myself, it’s because I don’t believe that 60% of the Democratic electorate of SC voted for him. And without an auditable, verifiable recount, I never will.
I don’t just think the vote was fiddled, I DO think this guy is a plant. Why? Does he SOUND like someone who wants to be a Senator? This is an unemployed guy facing trial, who was awarded a court-appointed attorney due to proven indigence. So a couple months ago, he didn’t have money. But he came up with a ten grand filing fee? Where did he get the money? And if he got the money legitimately somewhere, why did he spend it on this?
If you’re spending your money filing to run for office rather than spending it on a decent attorney to keep your ass out of JAIL, you’ve got a compelling reason, you’re got a passion to gain elected office and do something. Did that come across in anything this guy said?
Vote fiddling is the only explanation that makes sense. If you posit that Greene was elected by Republicans crossing over in an open primary to give DeMint an easier election, you would have to show that Republicans knew that Greene would be a weaker candidate – and that can’t be the case because nobody knew ANYTHING about him. If you posit that he was elected because blacks voted for the black candidate, you’d have to show that blacks KNEW he was the black candidate – and that can’t be the case because nobody knew ANYTHING about him.
Unless you tell me this was 100% paper ballots, I’m going to assume the vote was rigged, because nothing else makes sense.
As for why? Why not? Trial run. See if it works. See if an election can be stolen.
sukabi
@JoyceH: have to agree with you… my sister lives in SC, was heavily involved in the Dem primary process working for a candidate that eventually went Green Party because the Dem party dicked him over… She never heard of Alvin Green until after his win… seems kind of strange, since she helped organize and put on some of the Dem caucus events and was going to official Dem meetings and shit…
it’s all in who and what counts the votes, and if they can be verified…
Joyce, votes cast and counted on faith based electronic machines.
TruthOfAngels
@Bill Section 147:
Of course. Just ask Speaker Boehner, Senate Majority Leader McConnell, and President McCain.
Flugelhorn
Maybe I am missing something?
How is this guy different from any other Democrat cadidate?
Steeplejack
@Flugelhorn:
Nice. I especially liked the “Democrat” rather than “Democratic” touch.
Flugelhorn
@Steeplejack:
Just could not resist. This must just eat you guys up!
This guy is Palin’s Mississippi. The biggest difference is, Palin is not actually running for anything. Bravo!
Steeplejack
@Flugelhorn:
Not sure what you mean by “Palin’s Mississippi,” but you seem to equate this guy with Sarah Palin. Good to know. And what does that say about her?
I will remember to remind you of this if she decides to run for something in the future.
lou
Perhaps he received head injuries in Iraq and that’s how he can have a college degree, work in military intelligence and still seem out of it.
Someone upthread called him “borderline criminal.” Please read TPM’s account. His crime was supposedly showing some student on campus some porn on his computer screen. That’s a frickin’ felony? Yes, it’s harassment, but a felony?
Incidentally, the college student called him a “boy.” I smell a big huge whiff of racism here. And wonder if it happened seven months ago, why it hasn’t gone to court. Some deal where he files for office and the charges get dropped, hmmm?
Dr. Morpheus
@lou:
That makes sense, and then the $10,000 might have actually been his money.
He didn’t have to spend it on a better attorney because someone promised him that if he filed he wouldn’t be prosecuted.
Jim Demented doesn’t have to be involved, it could be just local
racistssupporters who “encouraged him” to run.gocart mozart
Is he a plant? Yes, and as to what type of plant, I’m going with potted plant based on the interview.
fucen tarmal
@J.W. Hamner:
its pretty simple, to racist fucks alvin greene is barack obama.
they see, and will enumerate parallels as they see them as far as experience and so on….
therefore, when “libruls” critique greene, they are, essentially saying the same things as totally non-racist, racist fucks were saying about obama….
Aaron Worthing
heh, dems run a candidate so awful that “none of the above” wins. and then they get into a screaming hissy fit that the voters didn’t vote they way they wanted them to.
so based on your stereotype of a nutjob candidate, you believe this is a dirty trick. heh.
Btw, i would take these cries of “dirty tricks” a little more seriously, if democrats cared about prosecuting black panthers for blatant, on camera, voter intimidation. or if they were interested in investigating whether acorn was engaged in voter fraud.
I am sure this will become yet another democratic legend of victimization, repeated over and over until you convince yourselves, at least, that it is the truth.
fucen tarmal
now in alvin greene’s defense, harry s truman lived with his mom, or mother in law, same difference, and alvin greene’s political outsider credentials are impeccable.
the smart dems ought to counter this by pumping greene with all the palinesque rhetoric to support him as they can muster…if this is a gop ratfuck, which it may as well be at this point, because that is the net effect, the dems nationally and locally do have the option of fucking back….it is politics, ya know *wink* youbetcha.
maus
@geg6:
If there’s a god, he’s in hell. Boogie Man was a pretty good look into how sociopaths are well-liked all the way into their later years, and how they will lie to and abuse their “friends” to the grave.
Uh, so he wins, or what?
Is it too late for an independent dem to enter the SC race?
scarshapedstar
Aside from the ‘sneaking in’ part… is this some crime that I’m unaware of? I keep hearing that he’s “accused” of this and it’s not the word I would have chosen to describe the situation.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the mental association between a big black guy and an 18-year-old Southern belle and the word “accused”… somebody call Atticus Finch!
maus
@Flugelhorn:
She’s technically ramping up to running for President, whether she thinks she can win or not. The money’s way too good not to.
fucen tarmal
@maus:
no, just for giggles. they are giggling at us, lets giggle back.
he won’t win, a good dem wouldn’t win in sc. that isn’t the issue. the point is to make the gop have to counter, to provoke them into paying any sort of mind to this, then hammer them for being unfair.
Aaron Worthing
scar
well the actual crime is obsenity, so presumable it was hardcore porn. but while the whole thing is creepy, its not hard to understand why so far the DA is not pursuing the matter. it just seems like a really bad pick up attempt.
John Bird
If there’s a plan here, we’re looking at it in all its inscrutable, dense glory right now, as the effect on the Senate, on SC’s political and racial climate, and pretty much everything else will be nil. If some folks blew some money to make this happen, they have to be the stupidest people on Earth.
FlipYrWhig
I want Greene to call this off because I feel like he’s going to end up cracking under the pressure and killing himself. Just a morbid hunch.
Flugelhorn
@Steeplejack:
What it means is that you may say what you like about Palin. Put her up to be the face of Republicans and then tear her down for being a nitwit, etc… With Alvin Greene on the board and actually RUNNING for something, it does not matter what you guys say about Palin in order to characterize all Repubs and/or Tea Bag partiers as idiots. The Dems will always have someone worse.
That is what I meant when I said that Alvin Greene is Palin’s Mississippi.
Glen Tomkins
How this would work as a ratfuck
In VA, we don’t have party ID. Anyone can vote in either party’s primaries, just not in both at the same election. Which party’s ballot you asked for in these primaries is recorded, and that information is available as part of the voter database that the state makes available to the parties. Based on that information, it is quite clear that Republicans over the years here in VA have an organized system of tactical voting. For this, and other, reasons, they tend to choose their candidates at conventions instead of primaries. That leaves the party faithful free to vote as directed in our primaries. They vote as a bloc, and for the candidate they have determined has the worst chance against their guy in November.
If you’re going to make this into some sort of Republican plot, you would need for SC to have the same openness to crossover, “tactical” voting. I don’t even know if that’s true. Then you’ld need to show massive voting for Greene by Republicans. This would work best where the R race for their House nominee was not competitive, so their voters would have been free to vote tactically. If SC doesn’t report which party’s primary a voter participated in, you could look at vote totals in heavily R precincts.
What you might also find, is evidence that Rs went into (paid people to go into) heavily black precincts, and/or to black preachers, with lit emphasizing Greene’s ethnicity. This would have worked best where the D House nominations were the most competitive, because turnout would already have been high, and it would have been simply a matter of swaying a vote in a race receiving little attention, from voters who were going to be at the polling place anyway for other reasons.
If you don’t find these things, then it’s hard to see why the Rs would put up 10k to get this guy qualified. If it was an unpredictable fluke that the guy won, what would the percentage have been for them to front the guy the 10k? If you don’t find evidence, and it shouldn’t be that hard to find if it’s there, that the winning part wasn’t a fluke, that there was work behind it, then it was just a fluke, not a ratfuck.
Church Lady
Where you smell “rat fuck”, I smell idiot on your part. Take two candidates with low to zero name recogniation (two weeks before the primary, something like 86% of voters had no opinion, favorable or unfavorable on Rawls and only 5% had a favorable opinion), add in a bunch of low-info voters, place the candidates on the ballot in alphabetical order, and it’s quite possible that the unknown Greene beats the almost as unknown Rawls.
Given that DeMint has an absolute lock on re-election, what difference would it make anyway?
Frankie
At least when the Democrats have an unqualified dolt as their candidate, they call him an qualified dolt.
maus
@Violet:
What are they supposed to do? Nobody investigated this guy because he had NO CAMPAIGN. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. He has a flimsy story of going door to door that hasn’t yet been confirmed, and he hasn’t gone on any shows or made himself visible. Of course he was “let” run, who knew anything about him to raise the questions until now?
maus
@fucen tarmal: That would, of course require that complicity of the media, and one far more intelligent than we currently have.
sukabi
for all you speculating on what’s up with this race take a look at what’s being uncovered regarding the VOTE COUNTS don’t equal votes cast…. more votes were counted for Greene than were cast. And that’s not a function of how he got into the race, who backed him or where he got his money to run, it’s a function of IT DOESN’T MATTER WHO RUNS OR VOTES, ALL THAT MATTERS IS HOW THE VOTES ARE COUNTED.
Steeplejack
@Flugelhorn:
This is way late, and I’m sure the troll Flugelhorn is long gone, but . . . dude, seriously?!
The Republicans put Palin up to be the face of Republicans by nominating her to run for vice president. And since getting her ass handed to her in the ’08 election, she has refused to vacate the public stage. So how is it “our” fault that she remains the “face of Republicans”?
The stoopid, it burns.
RalfW
I’m with JoyceH: trial run by Deibold hackers to see if it can be done. Thankfully, the guys at 538 are digging into the data (as far as they can, since I’m pretty sure there’s no real audit trail to follow).
Paperless electronic voting. Friggin’ yikes.
Bozak
The real investigation should be into the 60% of the voters that voted for him.
Is the country so pissed off at the current administration that they would vote for someone they know nothing about over an incumbent?
Vail Beach
Thank you Glenn Thomas…finally, sanity.
It is pathetic that a blog with a reputation like Balloon Juice’s would even entertain the thought that this was a conspiracy. A third-grader could immediately see that story doesn’t hang together.
You mock the birthers, but you’re no different, no better.
Vail Beach
Of course I meant Tomkins, not Thomas.