Interesting politics in South Carolina

[Leroy Lizard]

Sorry if this has been posted already.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-now/2010/06/bob_menendez_explains_the_alvi.html



Bob Menendez explains the Alvin Greene mess in South Carolina Senate race

Earlier Wednesday, I asked DSCC chairman Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) what exactly had happened in the South Carolina primary, where paper candidate Alvin Greene -- a 32-year old unemployed veteran who paid a filing fee but did no campaigning -- upset the party's choice.

"We take our efforts and time in the states where we have the greatest calculus of being able to engage and win," said Menendez, "so we weren't engaged in South Carolina. But I think one story out of South Carolina is the volatility that exists out there, where you have someone who spent no time and no effort on a campaign, and that guy could win. That shows the nature of the campaigns out there."

Not long after that, the South Carolina Democratic Party discovered that Greene was facing felony charges over having allegedly shown obscene material to a college student. Carol Fowler, the party chairman, has talked to Greene and asked him to quit the race. As of right now DSCC has not responded or signed on to the South Carolina party's request.


Here is more on Greene.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Greene


Alvin Greene is a Democratic politician from South Carolina. He is the Democratic nominee in the 2010 United States Senate election, challenging incumbent Republican Jim DeMint. He won the Democratic primary race against Vic Rawl[1] despite having no website, raising no money, and having no yard signs.[2] An unemployed Army veteran, Greene lives with his parents[3] near Manning in Clarendon County.[4] The state Democratic Party chairperson states that she has not seen him since filing to run.[1] He did not attend the state Democratic party convention, failed to file legally required forms with the Secretary of the Senate and the Federal Election Commission, and attempted to pay his $10,400 filing fee with a personal check.[3]

This man makes J.C. Watts, Sr. look like FDR.

[SoonerStormchaser]

Why do you hate black people?

[Leroy Lizard]

http://www.psychologytoday.com/files/u114/race_card.gif

[Ike]

Almost makes me wonder if he, or whoever it was that put up the 10k filing fee for him, knew how to hack the electronic voting machines, and figured this would be a good race to demonstrate that such a thing is more than just a possibility.

Given that even if the DNC's candidate had won, the DeMint was still expected to win in a landslide, I doubt it was a republican that put him up for this...that would be a waste of 10k.

Or...maybe he's telling the truth and is just naive....maybe he spent a lot of time driving around talking to people and had a completely word-of-mouth kind of campaign. I find it unlikely, but possible.

If I were running the FBI though, I'd be checking into a lot of things with this guy and checking to see if his story about saving the money checks out, because it smells fishy.

[Leroy Lizard]

Almost makes me wonder if he, or whoever it was that put up the 10k filing fee for him, knew how to hack the electronic voting machines, and figured this would be a good race to demonstrate that such a thing is more than just a possibility.

Given that even if the DNC's candidate had won, the DeMint was still expected to win in a landslide, I doubt it was a republican that put him up for this...that would be a waste of 10k.

Or...maybe he's telling the truth and is just naive....maybe he spent a lot of time driving around talking to people and had a completely word-of-mouth kind of campaign. I find it unlikely, but possible.

If I were running the FBI though, I'd be checking into a lot of things with this guy and checking to see if his story about saving the money checks out, because it smells fishy.

They probably need to go into the areas in which he won heavily and ask a few questions to make sure that the results hold up. Something's wrong or the voters are utter morons.

BTW, Greene won pretty handily: 59% to 41%. And his opponent, Vic Rawl, was fairly well known in the state and an experienced politician.

[ndpruitt03]

I know it doesn't really matter because he will get killed by DeMint, but this has to be one of the most bizarre things ever. Seems like he only won because his name was first.

[Leroy Lizard]

A 59/41 vote indicates that there is far more to it.

[Okla-homey]

DeMint is safe. Trust me. A Democrat could no more win a Senate seat in Souse Cackalackey than one could in Oklahoma. In SC, and Alabama too for that matter, "democrat" is a synonym for a very ugly racial epithet that only rappers, hip-hop artistes, and certain comedians can say out loud.

[Stitch Face]

On a related note, that Nikki Haley is kinda cute in a way.

[Leroy Lizard]

Republicans do tend to put out some nice looking women.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01644/Nikki-Haley_1644206c.jpg

[KABOOKIE]

felony charges over having allegedly shown obscene material to a college student

Where's the crime?

[Leroy Lizard]

Good question. There must be more to it than the statement shows at face value. Maybe the student was underage.

[ndpruitt03]

This guy gets weirder and weirder

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/10/AR2010061002499.html


Greene leads a remarkably isolated existence at the home of his ailing 81-year-old father, James Greene, on a stretch of rural highway in central South Carolina. Greene has no cellphone and no computer, except the one at the public library.

"I check my e-mail, like, it varies, maybe -- I'm more, I mean -- two or three times a week," he says. "I prefer the telephone. I'm a little old-fashioned. I prefer the telephone. That's the easiest."

Someone from Fox news talked with him about his policy issues. He's for health care and the bank bailouts. Has no idea what TARP is. Says he will run on fixing employment despite being unemployed. And thinks it'll be better economically for the USA if there is one Korea. Thinks we are doing just fine in the mid east.

[Leroy Lizard]

Is there anything about him that one could put down on a resume as a bragging point?

[ndpruitt03]

From what I can tell this is kinda like James the Marvel winning a primary.

[Bourbon St Sooner]

I'd vote for him. No money means Goldman Sachs hasn't bought him yet and he sounds more qualified than most of the lousy crooks in Congress now.

[Leroy Lizard]

I'd vote for him. No money means Goldman Sachs hasn't bought him yet and he sounds more qualified than most of the lousy crooks in Congress now.

Let's go back to J.C. Watts Sr.'s bid for a state office back in the 1990s. The Democratic Party wanted him to win precisely because he was naive and uneducated. When you want to pull off nasty things, it is best to have a goober in office that can go to jail for you once the schemes unravel.

If Greene ever wins, he will be every crook's pawn.

As an aside, there was actually an episode of The Honeymooners where a crooked political party puts Ralph up for election for precisely this reason.

[ouleaf]

A lot of people are saying he won the vote because a lot of uneducated voters didn't know who either democratic nominee was and voted for green simply because he was listed on the ballot first because alphabetically G of course comes before R.

The Daily Show made light of this whole situation and Stewart cracked a funny joke. Look out for your next governor....Aaron A. Aardvark.

[Okla-homey]

What this story really proves is Democrats in SC are uninformed clods.

[Okla-homey]

Is there anything about him that one could put down on a resume as a bragging point?

NPR reported he is a graduate of the Univeristy of South Carolina and a veteran...although he was discharged from the Army on what was probably a psychological.

[Soonerwake]

I would sure be proud to be a voter in South Carolina right now.. :D

[NormanPride]

What this story really proves is Democrats in SC are uninformed clods.

You know, my aunt was worried about this perception. She lives out in SC and was worried that now everyone will think they're all idiots out there. She voted for the other guy, but the issue is - she had no idea who the "other guy" was. Might as well have voted for this dork. She's a republican, though. I think she just wanted to vote? Who knows.

South Carolina is very weird.

[Ike]

A lot of people are saying he won the vote because a lot of uneducated voters didn't know who either democratic nominee was and voted for green simply because he was listed on the ballot first because alphabetically G of course comes before R.

The Daily Show made light of this whole situation and Stewart cracked a funny joke. Look out for your next governor....Aaron A. Aardvark.

The ballot order thing is a measured phenomenon that happens just about everywhere. It can usually be responsible for up to about a 1-2% swing. This can easily be adjusted for by alternating the ballot order between precincts (which I believe occurs in many places). Most of what I read seems to dismiss this theory.

Ive also heard the theory bantered about that perhaps the name "Alvin Greene" is more likely to be associated with an african american...or at least more likely than "Vic Rawl". Considering that Rawl only spent about 190k on the campaign, that seems at least more likely than the ballot order issue, but maybe not enough to explain the total margin of victory. There has certainly been a relationship shown between his margin of victory at the precinct level and the percentage of the population that is african american in those precincts...but it's a pretty small relationship. That doesn't really say enough though because the racial divide between the parties is pretty large.

Then there's the issue that Rawl did a lot better than Greene among absentee ballots. Among those, he won by 11%. Which is curious because *usually* absentee balloting mimics very closely election day balloting. There is also a statistical study of the precinct level data. By looking at the second digit in the vote totals at each precinct, one would expect to find a well known statistical distribution of each digit. The Greene-Rawl ballots differ from that distribution at a 90% confidence level (meaning you would get a difference this large 10% of the time naturally). Thats not exactly a smoking gun, but it points to the possibility that there was some tampering going on.

Tom Schaller at FiveThirtyEight has done a pretty good job staying on top of things. (note that he is a friend of Rawl's campaign manager, and discloses that in at least 2 of those articles).

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/06/sc-democratic-primary-getting-weirder.html

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/06/something-fishy-in-south-carolina.html

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/06/more-developments-in-south-carolina-d.html

At this point, I'd say there is enough wierdness going on to perhaps warrant an investigation into potential vote tampering.

[Leroy Lizard]

You know, my aunt was worried about this perception. She lives out in SC and was worried that now everyone will think they're all idiots out there. She voted for the other guy, but the issue is - she had no idea who the "other guy" was.

The other guy was far better known than the dork. Not only that, he spent money on advertising for his campaign.

More on the story:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/Was-Alvin-Greenes-Surprise-SC-Win-Legitimate-3995