James Clyburn On Alvin Greene Mess In South Carolina: 'Elephant Dung All Over The Place'
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Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) has been on the forefront of suggesting that the out-of-nowhere election of Alvin Greene in the South Carolina Democratic Senaye primary was the result of some seedy political shenanigans.
On Sunday, the congressman took his charges to a more colorful level, proclaiming that there was "elephant dung all over the place" when it came to Greene's election.
"[I]t turned up after the elections, we found out, as I said earlier, something untoward was going on," Clyburn told CNN's State of the Union. "Now all of a sudden, we see that Congressman Joe Wilson's campaign manager was, in fact, managing the campaign of my primary opponent. I saw the patterns in this. I know a Democratic pattern, I know a Republican pattern, and I saw in the Democratic primary, elephant dung all over the place. So I knew something was wrong in that primary. And this result tells us that. People intentionally circumvented the law, the rules and regulations, did not file any disclosures, did not file any of their campaign finances, yet they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars running this campaign and broke every law."
Clyburn was asked earlier whether he could see himself supporting Greene's candidacy, to which he said "no."
"No, I don't see myself getting behind Mr. Greene. The fact of the matter is, of course, I never said he was a Republican plant. I said he was someone's plant," said Clyburn.
Greene, as a refresher, had a truly remarkable primary victory on Tuesday evening. Despite having limited means, he managed to pay the $10,400 fee to get his name on the ballot. He didn't campaign seemingly anywhere and yet managed to garner enough votes for the nomination. Since then it has been discovered that he had been arrested in November and charged with showing obscene Internet photos. He has, nevertheless, pledged to continue with his all-but-impossible effort to unseat incumbent Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).
UPDATE: Appearing on Meet The Press, White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod was asked whether he thought Greene was a legitimate candidate. He replied:
It doesn't appear so to me. It was a mysterious deal. He didn't campaign... the whole thing is odd and I don't know really how to explain it and I don't think anybody else does either...I think the Democrats of South Carolina deserve a strong credible candidate. And he would argue, I suppose, that he won the primaries so that would be him. How he won the primary is a big mystery though and until you resolve that I don't think he can claim to be a strong credible candidate.
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First Posted: 06/13/10 11:33 AM ET Updated: 05/25/11 05:45 PM ET