Unemployeed Man Wins Dem Primary Party Leaders Go Crazy

[ItsTime]

Dem leadership totally misses the boat again. They should not be asking where he got the money, they should be asking HOW DID HE WIN? :eek:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/11/AR2010061106159.html


S.C. Democrats ask: Where did Alvin Greene get money to file for Senate primary?

By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 12, 2010; A04

MANNING, S.C. -- Where'd he get the money?

That's the question here. How did Alvin M. Greene, an unemployed military veteran who lives with his father, come up with the $10,400 filing fee for the Democratic Senate primary he won Tuesday?

As pressure mounts on Greene to answer speculation that he might have been a Republican plant -- an accusation he denies -- a small cadre of supporters is coalescing to defend the 32-year-old novice, who was victorious without benefit of campaign staff members, contributors or even speaking events. Prominent among them is Eleazer Carter, a Columbia, S.C., criminal defense lawyer, who said Friday that he has begun examining the campaign in preparation for any possible legal action against Greene.

Carter's involvement, like almost everything in Greene's saga, has an element of intrigue. Carter says he's working at the behest of "unofficial members of Greene's campaign" but won't identify them.

"These are people who are interested in this election," Carter said in an interview. "Persons from his county. They are people who know him."

South Carolina has a history of political plants being placed in elections to skew turnout. In 1992, Republican operative Rod Shealy was convicted of hiring an African-American fisherman to run for congressional office in hopes of stimulating white turnout to help his sister get elected lieutenant governor. The case of Greene, who is African American, has reminded many here of the Shealy incident, though political sleuths have not come up with any logical meddler or motive.

"Recruiting an African American in a primary is not a novel idea," said Dick Harpootlian, a former South Carolina Democratic Party chairman who was the prosecutor in the Shealy case. "We've seen it before."

Harpootlian and many others have noted that Greene was assigned a public defender after being charged with showing pornography to a University of South Carolina student in November in a case that is pending. (Earlier, Greene said he is not guilty.) He said that public defenders are generally assigned to represent defendants who are indigent and that it would be unusual for someone who had more than $10,000 in a bank account to be declared indigent.

"It raises the question, did somebody assist him in filing?" Harpootlian said. "Given all that, inquiring minds want to know."

In an interview Friday at his father's home outside Manning, Greene said he got the money from a personal bank account containing money he saved before being discharged from the Army last summer. He declined to show documentation of the account.

"I saved the money from the Army," Greene said. "Army, Army, Army, Army money. My personal Army money." Then, he had a question of his own: "Can I get paid for this interview?"

[sailingaway]

And here I thought they'd point to it as a 'jobs' program....

Reading your article, this is very interesting -- it seems like what they have against him is that he is BLACK!!

Woo hoo!! The curse of collectivism! They are worried their party members won't vote for him for that reason!

" South Carolina has a history of political plants being placed in elections to skew turnout. In 1992, Republican operative Rod Shealy was convicted of hiring an African-American fisherman to run for congressional office in hopes of stimulating white turnout to help his sister get elected lieutenant governor. The case of Greene, who is African American, has reminded many here of the Shealy incident, though political sleuths have not come up with any logical meddler or motive.

"Recruiting an African American in a primary is not a novel idea," said Dick Harpootlian, a former South Carolina Democratic Party chairman who was the prosecutor in the Shealy case. "We've seen it before."

Harpootlian and many others have noted that Greene was assigned a public defender after being charged with showing pornography to a University of South Carolina student in November in a case that is pending. (Earlier, Greene said he is not guilty.) He said that public defenders are generally assigned to represent defendants who are indigent and that it would be unusual for someone who had more than $10,000 in a bank account to be declared indigent.

"It raises the question, did somebody assist him in filing?" Harpootlian said. "Given all that, inquiring minds want to know."

I guess we can safely infer there will be no 'unity parties' in the South Carolina Democratic Senate race.

[Agorism]

Did he actually win the primary?

[rprprs]

Boy did you nail that. That is exactly the question that should be asked. I thought that from day 1, after learning about his victory. To hell with him, questions about where he came from or how he got the filing fee pale by comparison to the far more important issue as to how he pulled off a victory. Concerns about the voting process or, at the very least, what this says about the clueless voters are far more important issues.

[Working Poor]

I love it :D

[libertythor]

Some South Carolina State University students have helped him start up his Digg account and iron out his grammar. :eek:

http://digg.com/users/AlvinGreene

[Kregisen]

So assuming somebody supplied him the money, how did 59% of people vote for him?

Obviously people are tired of the incumbents, and being black in SC may have helped, but I still don't get it....


Regardless, this isn't bad news. Can't wait to see what happens from here!

[muh_roads]

How dare he get past our $10,400 road block that should have prevented the average citizen from representing average folks. I guess we'll have to raise the price of admission so us aristocrats can maintain our stranglehold.

[brandon]

So assuming somebody supplied him the money, how did 59% of people vote for him?

Obviously people are tired of the incumbents, and being black in SC may have helped, but I still don't get it....


Regardless, this isn't bad news. Can't wait to see what happens from here!

I think it's more of just a random distribution. Voters don't know the candidates. Winning an election is like winning a hand of blackjack.

[AGRP]

I love how the media constantly promotes baseless theories as facts (in this case, hes republican plant).

[AdamT]

How dare he get past our $10,400 road block that should have prevented the average citizen from representing average folks. I guess we'll have to raise the price of admission so us aristocrats can maintain our stranglehold.

Ha! Well put.

[TCE]

Take a closer look at the primary, it is extraordinarily suspicious. I'm surprised no one has come on to post about the voting machines being rigged yet. I guess it's only discussion-worthy if it happens to one of our guys?

[specsaregood]

Take a closer look at the primary, it is extraordinarily suspicious. I'm surprised no one has come on to post about the voting machines being rigged yet. I guess it's only discussion-worthy if it happens to one of our guys?

Way to not post any facts worthy of discussing. What exactly is "extraordinarily suspicious"?

[TCE]

Way to not post any facts worthy of discussing. What exactly is "extraordinarily suspicious"?

It's always nice to know people still read my posts:

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

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

I am aware it is a left-leaning blog, but it is usually spot-on about the electoral stuff.

[specsaregood]

It's always nice to know people still read my posts:

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

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

I am aware it is a left-leaning blog, but it is usually spot-on about the electoral stuff.

The PPP poll mentioned in the first link, assumed the other candidate would be Demints opponent and had NO questions about Greene. Rawl was 3x more likely to be seen unfavorably. 5favorable, 14unfavorable. and only 18% even knew who he was.

From the first link:

What's stunning is that there simply is no relationship between the race of a county's registrants and Greene's performance in that county.
Stunning, racism doesn't seem to be a factor! :eek: We are in shock, people didn't decide this by race. :eek:


It seems to me one of four things could have happened here:
1. Vic Rawl and his campaign ignored the non-candidacy candidacy of Alvin Greene and so, despite Rawl's slightly higher but still low statewide name recognition--much of which was unfavorable, mind you--Democratic primary voters chose Greene as a placemarker substitute for a candidate, Rawl, they either didn't know or, if they did know, didn't like.


From the second link:


Well, I think it's safe to say that the third possibility I raised in the previous post--GOP cross-primary infiltration--can be eliminated. There doesn't seem to be any direct or circumstantial evidence for that, and there were sufficient motives to participate in the very contentious GOP gubernatorial primary (especially with Nikki Haley running). So we can almost certainly eliminate the idea that there was a coordinated GOP effort to get Republican and/or conservative voters to pick up Democratic ballots with the intent of selecting Greene as DeMint's general election opponent.


Ok, so I just read those long posts and didn't see anything "extraordinarily suspicious" and they even concluded that there isn't any reason to believe anything hinky went on in this election.

Personally, I think it all comes down to his name: Al Green
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Green
"Rolling Stone named him #65 in their list of the '100 Greatest Artists of All Time'"
People who even don't know who that is, probably recognize the name favorably, even if subconsciously.

[TCE]

Dr. Miller performed additional tests to determine whether there was a significant difference in the percentage of absentee and Election Day votes that each candidate received. The result in the Senate election is highly statistically significant: Rawl performs 11 percentage points better among absentee voters than he does among Election Day voters. “This difference is a clear contrast to the other races. Statistically speaking, the only other Democratic candidate who performed differently among the two voter groups was Robert Ford, who did better on Election Day than among absentees in the gubernatorial primary,” Miller said.

That is a huge disparity. An 11-point difference of absentee vs. election day voters. Why did voters voting early like Rawl so much better than election day voters? Nothing happened scandal-wise, either. Hopefully the watchdogs will keep looking at this race closer and find out if something illegal occurred.

[specsaregood]

That is a huge disparity. An 11-point difference of absentee vs. election day voters. Why did voters voting early like Rawl so much better than election day voters? Nothing happened scandal-wise, either. Hopefully the watchdogs will keep looking at this race closer and find out if something illegal occurred.

Because many of the establishment officials and dem-party faithful were more likely to vote ahead of time via absentee ballots? I think 11pts bonus is probably par for the course for establishment candidates. IIRC, Rand Paul was behind initially when they were only reporting the absentee ballots they counted first.

[TCE]

Because many of the establishment officials and dem-party faithful were more likely to vote ahead of time via absentee ballots? I think 11pts bonus is probably par for the course for establishment candidates. IIRC, Rand Paul was behind initially when they were only reporting the absentee ballots they counted first.

We could easily go back and forth on this for hours, but for right now, I'm not sold that there was no ballot rigging via voting machines and again, I hope other people look into this as well.

[specsaregood]

//

[nobody's_hero]

The democratic party has a vanity issue at the moment (republicans know they're not liked at the moment, so it isn't quite as bad; wait for them to return to the majority).

They're stuck believing that it is totally impossible average democrats could ever get upset with the democratic leadership. They must preserve the appearance of party unity!, 'lest they end up like that band of savages known as the GOP.

[moostraks]

How dare he get past our $10,400 road block that should have prevented the average citizen from representing average folks. I guess we'll have to raise the price of admission so us aristocrats can maintain our stranglehold.

I interpreted it that way as well. I wouldn't have showed them anything more either. Lol at the "Am I going to get paid for this interview" comment.:D

[Knightskye]

Democrats love the unemployed until they beat the establishment pick and become the nominee, huh?

[Andrew-Austin]

Maybe he got some kind of affirmative action loan thanks to a Democrat enacted law?

That would be hilarious.