Brett Banter

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.

We wrote a post not too long ago about how the issue that just won't go away in our state -- the Confederate flag -- continues to command attention from both sides ten years after the flag was removed from the dome of the South Carolina Statehouse. Though the flag was taken down from the Capitol and placed on a 30-foot pole on the Statehouse lawn, the NAACP and others continue to protest the flag's presence on state property. The issue that just won't die in South Carolina has positioned our state on a perilous ledge until it is fully resolved. The ongoing ferocity potentially jeopardizes not only our own internal political and social relations, but has the opportunity to also directly impact the state's economy by causing businesses to shy away from bringing industry to such a cutthroat political climate.

If you've lived in South Carolina for any significant period of time, you undoubtedly know that the Confederate flag flies in front of the Capitol in Columbia next to a monument honoring fallen Confederate soldiers. Our state has a storied and tense history with the flag, which perched atop the Capitol building from 1962 until the state senate passed a bill in 2000 to have it moved to its current location. And there it has flown ever since...albeit a more traditional square-shaped version of the flag.

According to an article by The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, recent elections in our neighboring states have proven that the power wielded by incumbents running for re-election, well, just... isn't there anymore.

Cillizza says "Voters don't like incumbents these days", pointing to recent defeat of NJ Governor Jon Corzine and the fact that NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg barely managed to eke out a win even after far outspending his challenger.

Notably, Cillizza also remarks, "While it's likely that any sustained sentiment of this sort will hurt Democrats more than Republicans, this sort of political environment is decidedly unpredictable and could lead to surprising defeats for presumed safe incumbents -- of both parties -- next November." He says constitutents are quite simply just not intrigued by the politicians they currently have in office.

This comment is particularly interesting because in South Carolina, while Democratic incumbents are certainly susceptible to failure, our state is traditionally dominated by Republicans. So, for example, how will Cillizza's prediction play out when it comes to powerhouse incumbents Jim DeMint and Joe Wilson?

On top of that, we have side spin of the Mark Sanford affair, and how that issue affects the South Carolina Republican Party's candidates should prove quite interesting. Don't forget to read the full article from WaPo.

On Sunday, Taegan Goddard's Political Wire ran a short blip from political strategist and Obama heavyweight David Plouffe's new book, The Audacity to Win. The book quote points to former Presidential hopeful John Edwards. After deciding his campaign was finally kaput, Edwards apparently tried to turn his loss into an endorsement bargaining chip laid on the table between remaining candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. An Edwards aide indicated that Edwards might be willing to jump ship to Team Obama ship to help defeat Mrs. Clinton.