The story of the night is not the outcome of the Arkansas Democratic senate primary but the South Carolinian one. A black, unemployed veteran, who raised no money and spent no money, had no website, no signs, no ads, and didn’t even file mandatory FEC reports, is destroying Vic Rawl. Vic Rawl has a website. Vic Rawl has a political biography. He would have been an underdog against Jim DeMint, but he would have been a serious challenger. It’s unclear how this all happened, but people have been wondering about the mysterious Alvin Greene ever since the Columbia Free Times wrote about him on May 19th.
At the end of a dirt driveway off a dusty highway in rural Clarendon County, just outside the town of Manning, a lawn overgrown with weeds sports no campaign sign for the man living in a house there who has filed to run as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate.
The candidate, a 32-year-old unemployed black Army veteran named Alvin Greene, walked into the state Democratic Party headquarters in March with a personal check for $10,400. He said he wanted to become South Carolina’s U.S. senator.
Needless to say, Democratic Party Chairwoman Carol Fowler was a bit surprised.
Fowler had never met Greene before, she says, and the party isn’t in the habit of taking personal checks from candidates filing for office. She told Greene that he’d have to start a campaign account if he wanted to run. She asked him if he thought it was the best way to invest more than $10,000 if he was unemployed.
Several hours later, Greene came back with a campaign check. The party accepted it, and Greene became an official candidate for the U.S. Senate. He was eager to have his picture put on the party’s website to show he had filed, says state Democratic Party executive director Jay Parmley.
But that was the extent of his campaign.
Though he says he is running, and running to win, Greene has not taken the steps one might expect from an active candidate — some of them required by law.
He has not filed with the Secretary of the Senate, according to its Washington, D.C. office. Nor has he filed any disclosure reports with the Federal Election Commission, which the FEC requires by law.
No campaign signs appear around the area where he lives, and Greene admits he hasn’t taken in any donations.
When the South Carolina Democratic Party held its convention in April, Greene did not show up.
Reached by phone May 12, and asked how he thought his campaign was going, Greene said, “So far, so good.”
And the amazing thing? He was right. He won the election.
I don’t know which Republican handed this man $10,400 to file as a candidate, or how much extra cash he received to carry out the task. But I don’t imagine that they ever imagined he’d actually win. This has all the makings of a movie script. All Alvin Greene has to do now is employ the same brilliant campaign strategy to unseat teabagger extraordinaire Jim DeMint. He can just hole up in his parents’ house, leave the lawn unmowed and offer down home political advice to any reporters who call him on the phone.
Asked if he thought it was a good investment to spend so much of his own money in a two-way Democratic primary to run against a popular Republican with millions in campaign cash, Greene replied: “Rather than just save the $10,000 and just go and buy gasoline with it, just take [it] and just be unemployed for [an] even longer period of time, I mean, that wouldn’t make any sense, um, just, um, but, uh, yes, uh … lowering these gas prices … that will create jobs, too. Anything that will lower the gasoline prices. Offshore drilling, the energy package, all that.”
He’ll win (again) in a walk, and Mr. Greene can go to Washington. You want the money taken out of politics? This is the man for you.
Is it safe to assume that DeMint had no opposition and South Carolina has open primaries?
No. DeMint had a primary challenger and the big election was the governor’s freak-show Republican primary, so very few Republicans would have chosen to vote in the Dem primary.
Interesting. Maybe DeMint has a dead girl or live boy problem that’s yet to be exposed…
DeMint’s primary “opposition” was a former Democrat who couldn’t really cite any differences between herself and DeMint.
I live in SC and the chances of a significant cross-vote (Republicans voting as Democrats just to skew the results) isn’t very likely. The Republicans had a number of competitive races– including an Indian-American Tea Party woman running for the gubernatorial nomination against four white guys.
W/e. Lincoln’s going to win probably. Fucking pissed off. Time to get drunk and smoke a bowl.
Seriously, betting against Bill Clinton in Arkansas?
Well when the results were creeping in, my first thoughts were “Fuck Bill Clinton.”
And now that it’s been called for Lincoln officially, once again, Fuck Bill Clinton.
I hope Halter doesn’t endorse her. In fact, not only do I not want him to endorse her, I want him to run for House in 2012 and then take her seat for good in 2016
don’t worry, this just saves us the hassle of thinking we had any chance of keeping this seat. You won’t see Blanche no more come next January.
Lol, that would be a good narrative if the DSCC bought it. They’re going to waste all sorts of resources for this corporate peon.
we’ll see. I think the polls will be rather decisive about the matter. Half the Dems in Arkansas are thinking about registering as Republicans and the other half just voted for her opponent. She’s finished. There’s no way Halter’s people are going to turn out for Blanche in numbers, and she’d need all their votes and more to have any chance. The DSCC will know the deal shortly.
If the DSCC knew shit about anything this wouldn’t have happened in the first place.
So where did an unemployed guy come up with ten grand to run for this office? Have we really taken “money out of politics” with Mr. Greene? To me it looks like this story raises more questions than it answers. Remember too that this is happening in S. Carolina and I wouldn’t give an unemployed black man with no record much of a chance of winning the general election come November.
How do you spell patsy?
A lot of unemployed people have savings. It did not say he was chronically unemployed, and the story did say that he was a veteran.
The true story will out soon. If he is a stalking horse, we will soon know it.
And in this respect, South Carolina is no different than any other state.
And yes it does raise more questions than it answers, but it takes the spotlight off Nikki Haley, doesn’t it.
That was not his money. If it was, he’s insane.
And, as we all know, if there’s one place you can be assured of being free of insanity, it’s South Carolina. 😉
Yeah, but not this kind of insanity.
Or unemployed and desperate to see something done. It is only insane within your understanding of politics. But insane candidates (in that sense) have come out of nowhere.
Pulling 99,000 votes doesn’t look like SC dirty tricks. You have to ask “Who were those voters?” If you look at the county totals, they are all over the state and they tend to be larger in counties with large populations of blacks. There is some organization there. Is it a Republican with walking around money; remember there was a high-profile Republican governor’s race on the ballot and the Democratic primary is closed.
Then you have to ask “How many more of them are there out there in SC?”
We will know the story shortly. Every political reporter in SC worth his salt will be all over it.
From Mother Jones…….
“It was 100 percent out of my pocket. I’m self-managed. It’s hard work, and just getting my message to supporters. I funded my campaign 100 percent out of my pocket and self-managed,” said Greene”
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/06/alvin-greene-south-carolina
I’m flummoxed. But this is not unusual for SC politics. What will be unusual is if he takes down DeMint, a very long shot now.
Will he show up to debate DeMint?
A little history. Clarendon County is where a companion suit to Brown v. Board of Education originated; the two suits were combined when they went to the Supreme Court. At that time, Clarendon County had no, zero, none schools for blacks. They were bused to a “colored school” in the next county.
Greene beat Rawls by 30,000 votes – a total of 99,230 votes with 99.6% reporting. (DeMint had 339,299) He beat DeMint’s total by 300 votes in Clarendon County. He ran only 7000 votes behind DeMint’s 20,000 vote total in Richland County (Columbia).
It looks very much like a strong network of black organizations put out the word for Greene.
This is likely to be the Larry Kissell populist story of 2010 if he is for real and not DeMint’s stalking horse to take Rawls out. I hope he doesn’t disappoint like Kissell did.
If as I suspect it was a black networking campaign, Greene is going to have to go public to get beyond that base or he is going to have to lull DeMint into complacency.
If nothing else, it might tie DeMint down to South Carolina instead of building his national ambitions.
The real question is .. why did 100,000 people vote for Greene when no one had a clue as to who he was .. I bet not one of them knew he was black
Or everyone who voted for him knew he was black and nobody else did outside of their network. This is going to be an interesting story as it unfolds.
If it is real, it might have to do with DeMint crowing about Obama’s Waterloo. The black community doesn’t like to be dissed like that.
But then the question becomes .. how did 100,000 people find out about him? .. he raised no money .. had no signs .. no campaign offices .. nothing
Good question. I have no idea how this happened. I’d like to beat DeMint but I still think this story is kind of cool.
People are saying it’s because of the alphabetic order of his name appearing first.
the Post & Courier appears to be pretending it didn’t happen. No mention on the front-page or in any of three articles on tonight’s races that I just read. It’s like Vic Rawl never existed.
The State has nothing on it either. But they are still focused on the Nikki Haley narrative.
My wife pointed out that The State (Columbia, SC) pretty much acted like the Democratic senatorial primary contest didn’t exist.
The Rawl campaign was so focused on raising money for the general election that they forgot to campaign actively for the primary. Big mistake.
Many Dems didn’t know either candidate. Several theories are floating around to explain why some 30,000+ opted for one unknown over another.
One radio talk show host today suggested that “Alvin Greene” just sounds more African-American than “Victor Rawl.” Maybe– but that assumes that the voters knew that there was even one African-American in the race.
OFA has been accused of having a hand in tilting the race. This has been denied emphatically but it does fit the circumstantial evidence.
That’s a lot of people voting alphabetically.
The Mother Jones article linked below has this bit:
Seriously – the SC Democratic Party chair says that the candidate with all the money, who actually advertised in this election, did such a piss-poor job of advertising that voters didn’t know more about him than they did of the guy who didn’t do any advertising at all
Greene apparently won with 59% of the vote. If this isn’t voting machine malfunctions or election shenanigans, then there’s more to this story. You don’t have an 18% margin of victory when people are flipping a coin. Anyone know if Rawl had made a lot of Democratic voters angry? Could it just be a case of “I’ll vote for anyone but that goddamn Vic Rawl” going on among primary voters?
If you have strong personal networks, especially through a statewide organization, it is not necessary to spend $186,000 on media campaigning.
All media does is confirm for folks that you are really a candidate; it persuades no one. The persuading is done through campaign stop one-on-ones, endorsing networks, and a field organization. There are indications that Rawl did not do enough retail politics or have a strong field organization.
It is hazardous to assume that those 90,000 people did not know who they were voting for.
I think you’re right, and I won’t be surprised at all if this turns out to be just that. I don’t think I could get 90,000 people to vote for me if I decided to run for statewide office, but then I’m not the type of person who has those kinds of social networks.
But to be clear – the point of my comment was more incredulity at the idiocy SC Democratic Party Chair’s comment. She sounds like a fool when she says “people just voted for the first name they saw”. Does she really believe that? If so, WTF does that say about her impression of the voters in the party she’s chairing? That the members are idiots and that if you want to win a nomination for national office you should change your name to Aaron Aardvark to get the extra bump?
I assume she does believe it, because frankly I don’t see the upside of responding with essentially “our voters are morons” when asked by the press.
Carol Fowler is the heir to a long string of party chairs from the Fowler family. The most successful being Don Fowler, who bombed out as Clinton’s DNC Chair.
So long that the Fowlers seem to think they own the SC Democratic Party just like Walter Jones thinks that he owns a seat in Congress just because his daddy Walter Jones was a long-time Democratic member of Congress.
That is one of the issues that has hamstrung the SC Democratic Party, the tightness of the establishment.
If Carol Fowler thinks that the Fowlers own the SCDP then she’s why wouldn’t she have blocked Greene’s candidacy or they uber-libertarian who took on Lindsay Graham last election cycle?
Incompetence. She doesn’t vet candidates. Just collects a paycheck.
My understanding is that the party can’t block a candidate from filing unless the candidate doesn’t meet some basic legal requirements (age, residency etc.)
Greene is legally eligible to run for office– unless he’s convicted of the felony that he’s charged with.
You’re absolving the Rawl campaign of any responsibility to win a primary by defining himself and his opponent.
For better or worse, we’re not talking about Daley-era Chicago. I suggest that you might want to reconsider that era before claiming that Fowler isn’t doing her job because she doesn’t act like a party boss of old.
About the Rawl campaign. I am not absolving it. He tried to phone it in and failed.
But Fowler failed to find out about Greene’s arrest in particular. And failed to ensure that the check indeed did come out of his funds.
I’m not talking about Fowler picking candidates, just vetting them for criminal records or any other major issues that could damage the Democratic brand.
I’m asking for due diligence, not for clearing the field. I actually think the field in primaries should be bigger so that progressives can make their case to the voters and see what happens.
I actually think there is going to be a criminal investigation out of this.
Is it possible for independents or write-ins to file after the primaries in SC?
A criminal investigation is highly likely given Rep. Clyburn’s latest comments.
I agree with you about “vetting and not clearing the field.” I’d be interested in knowing the practices of other state parties.
I’m wondering if the party has launched a full court press on Greene. Bringing in local community leaders, Black Caucus members from the statehouse etc. might lead him to change his mind about resigning.
Write-in candidates are possible in SC, I believe. I doubt that Rawl will campaign for that, however.
Church newsletters? Military/vet networks? Email forwarding doesn’t cost anything, right?
Mr. Greene has real grassroots. 😉
I’ve thought about this theory but, in the end, couldn’t get on board with it.
First, Greene is a stuttering imbecile. By most accounts, he doesn’t have the roots in the community (much less the entire state) to pull off this underground campaign.
Supporting evidence:
http://www.wistv.com/global/category.asp?c=151146&clipId=&topVideoCatNo=3851&topVideoCat
NoB=67010&topVideoCatNoC=125643&topVideoCatNoD=87934&topVideoCatNoE=138849&autoStart
true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=4857066&flvUri
&partnerclipid=Second,why would anyone with the influence to help Greene agree to help a stuttering idiot but forgo putting a well-spoken AA gubernatorial candidate on the general election ballot?
Third, the SC AA community may be somewhat separated from the white community but the AA leadership has functioning connections to the SCDP. Keeping this sort of grass roots effort top secret would be absolutely impossible.
I guess I should have put a question mark after my last sentence instead of a winky face. At the time I made my comment, we knew almost nothing about Greene and I was only suggesting possible explanations for how someone/anyone could run a cheap, unpublicized campaign. As the story unfolds, it certainly looks more and more suspicious…
Moving West a bit, Orly is going down in flames tonight. Sorry Booman, she isn’t breaking 28% anywhere in the state. She’s too nutty for even the wingnuts.
Damn. It’s just not our night. Well, it’s not anyone’s night. Lot of odd things going on. The teabaggers are having a ball.
Reid is the luckiest Harry since Truman in ’48.
California just approved Prop 14 .. should be fun times!!
Here’s a Mother Jones interview with Greene which will probably not answer anyone’s questions.
This article puts the lie to the assertion that he didn’t campaign. He said he traveled over the state. The fact that he won or was strong in most counties seems to back up that assertion.
he declined to say where he campaigned. I don’t think he did anything.
So where did those 90,000 votes come from? That’s an average of 2000 a county. Somebody did something to turn out that many people.
It’s a mystery.
I find this story to be quite hilarious. Our country is so screwed up.
I would love it if somehow this guy’s anti-political message caught fire and he won a six-year term. It’ll never happen, but talk about an everyman in the Senate!!
In the comments there was a link to this.
The Mother Jones article makes him sound like a dolt. The local paper interview makes him sound like a reasonable “outsider” candidate for office. I think there’s more to this story, and it’s a compelling enough narrative that some journalist is going to be digging on this one. We’ll probably know more about it in a month or so.
Gah – I have to check my personal biases on this one. I so want this to turn out to be real. Talk about a great story – guy with no money does no advertising – no commercials, no signs, no big endorsements – and manages to get the nomination over the machine-picked nominee. That’s the kind of thing that only happens in movies.
He’s a prototypical SCGOP ringer. Someone else paid the $10,400 filing fee and Greene sat back probably enjoying a few extra dollars for himself,never imagining that he’d win.
Now, it emerges that he’s under indictment for felony porno distribution and was kicked out of the Army.
Can you think of a better way for a dirty SC trickster with access to deep GOP pockets to spend $10,400?
Flameout
MSNBC is reporting:
Still doesn’t tell me how he flew under the radar. Did Rawl do any oppo research? That would be an obvious catch. Or is this an after the fact smear? And that is a very interesting felony charge, considering that both would be of legal age. Or did the student have to see them involuntarily?
The man has some answering to do.
Dang it. This is getting more interesting than the GOP mysteries.
TarheelDem apparently the “victim” in the case was 18; it depends on state law as to the age of minority. One suspects porno laws are pretty tough in S. Carolina, certainly tougher than those involving people getting killed with guns.
Speaking of poor taste, have a look at the Green charges story over at Huffingtonpost. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/09/alvin-greene-felony-charg_n_606599.html In the middle of the story, there’s a pic of a 95% nude lady with her virtually bare behind prominently featured; she’s “selling” Bodysuits. Using soft porn to sell things is o.k. in corporate America, even at Huffingtonpost but asking an 18 year old lady to have a look at a computer screen purportedly showing a porno site is a felony.
The true moral of this story seems to be that the Democratic party doesn’t have any real serious candidates in S. Carolina and that the country at large is in deep, deep trouble.
The SCDP is a basket case.
Prior to Mr. Rawl a candidate announced and may a go at raising money. Turns out that he had been registered as a Republican in North Carolina and pretty much had a Republican-lite message. He gained no traction and dropped out before Mr. Rawl was convinced to commit.
Yeah, not quite the feel-good story I had first hoped for.