More thoughts on the Greene machine
What did Alvin Greene's "surprise" victory in the race to be South Carolina's Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate really tell us? It's not anything can happen. Nor is it politics as usual. Or even that politics is changing. The real story is this is why people campaign hard. This is why their are yard signs, mass mailing and television ads. I often hear from people who complain about politicians who spend all their time campaigning and "wasting" money on ads. The lament is that the voter is smart enough to find the right person on their own.
Greene shows that doesn't happen. Greene, for those of you who haven't heard, is the unemployed Army vet facing a felony charge for showing pornography on a computer to a college freshman. He didn't campaign. Never filed reports with the state. Held no rallies. He paid his fee to the Democratic Party, vanished and ended up winning Tuesday night.
Conspiracy theorists are fishing the idea that Greene was a Republican plant to beat Democrat Vic Rawl. It's possible and not unheard of in South Carolina, but it does seem a little far fetched. Why would anyone pay Greene to essentially not run a campaign is highly circumspect. It could happen in a general election, but in a primary seems odd. Was Vic Rawl that much of a threat to U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint? No. Could this be a way to draw attention away from the malfunctioning GOP in the state? Maybe.
So, who voted for him? The theory is that Democrats focused on the gubernatorial race came out, hadn't been following the Senate race, and voted for the first name on the ballot. The other is that somehow black voters found out Greene was black and voted for him. The third is that Republicans somehow stuffed the ballot box. Yes, Republicans abandonded their own strong races to play a joke on the Democrats. Does that make sense?
Another possibility is machine error. Maybe the electronic voting tallies were wrong? Stranger things have happened.
The reality is voters elected a man they had never heard of in a race they didn't care about. Rawl apparently overlooked Greene in the race and was focused on November. He nor anyone gave Greene a second thought, and he waltzed right in.
That is why we campaign.
Greene shows that doesn't happen. Greene, for those of you who haven't heard, is the unemployed Army vet facing a felony charge for showing pornography on a computer to a college freshman. He didn't campaign. Never filed reports with the state. Held no rallies. He paid his fee to the Democratic Party, vanished and ended up winning Tuesday night.
Conspiracy theorists are fishing the idea that Greene was a Republican plant to beat Democrat Vic Rawl. It's possible and not unheard of in South Carolina, but it does seem a little far fetched. Why would anyone pay Greene to essentially not run a campaign is highly circumspect. It could happen in a general election, but in a primary seems odd. Was Vic Rawl that much of a threat to U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint? No. Could this be a way to draw attention away from the malfunctioning GOP in the state? Maybe.
So, who voted for him? The theory is that Democrats focused on the gubernatorial race came out, hadn't been following the Senate race, and voted for the first name on the ballot. The other is that somehow black voters found out Greene was black and voted for him. The third is that Republicans somehow stuffed the ballot box. Yes, Republicans abandonded their own strong races to play a joke on the Democrats. Does that make sense?
Another possibility is machine error. Maybe the electronic voting tallies were wrong? Stranger things have happened.
The reality is voters elected a man they had never heard of in a race they didn't care about. Rawl apparently overlooked Greene in the race and was focused on November. He nor anyone gave Greene a second thought, and he waltzed right in.
That is why we campaign.
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