The line American school kids hear the moment they set foot in a classroom is that one day you can be president. Most school kids, long before they stop becoming school kids, know it's just a line-- they can't and won't be president. Now enter Alvin Greene. Here's a guy with no job, no degree, no name recognition, no campaign organization, no website, and for all practical purposes, no party (he never attended a Democratic Party function). And to top it off, he's facing felony obscenity charges. Yet Greene gets 100,000 South Carolina voters to punch his name on the Democratic senatorial ballot.
The deep suspicion is that Greene is a GOP cropper; that is, that he's a bought-and-paid-for plant by the party to make fools of the Democrats and ensure a cakewalk victory for GOP Senate incumbent Jim DeMint. Possible -- it's happened before, the GOP has been accused of secretly bankrolling plants, shills, and croppers, and given the notorious cartoon antics of South Carolina politics, this can't be totally discounted. Greene had to plop down $10,400 to get his name on the ballot. That's a lot for a working stiff to pay out of pocket, let alone for someone unemployed.
But while it's plausible to be suspicious, for a GOP dirty trickster to prop up Greene as a strawman would be too blatant. They'd be more likely to put money behind someone with some political involvement and name recognition. Money inevitably leaves a paper trail, and if the trail led back to a GOP clandestine operative, the scandal could blow the party out the water. If Democratic voters suspected hanky panky with Greene, they could have easily ignored him and voted for his chief rival, Vic Rawl, a judge, who served on several state commissions and was a four term state legislator. He was the Democratic Party favorite. But voters didn't. They overwhelmingly picked Greene.
Republicans outnumber Democrats three to one in the state, and no Democratic presidential candidate has won South Carolina since Jimmy Carter in 1976. The chance of DeMint being toppled by a Democratic, especially a Democrat such as Rawl, who's just as much a party fixture, even with the fierce anti-incumbent mood was unlikely.
Greene makes even more sense with even a cursory look at the Gallup poll released a week before the June 8 primaries. It found that sixty percent of voters, and nearly 70 percent of self-described independents, said they would rather vote for a candidate who has never before served in Congress. Greene then is the perfect field of dreams for countless numbers of voters. He's the anti-candidate candidate who got on the ballot with nothing more than moxy, conviction and a vague desire to make change. Then, without spending a king's ransom on the race, without the backing of an armada of telecoms companies, banks, lawyers, unions, tobacco companies and other special interests greasing their campaign wheels, and without cutting endless backroom deals, can actually win. The first and often the only question anyone who wants to run for office is asked is not what are your ideas and program but how much money can and did you raise? Greene is the candidate who can honestly answer not a penny. The money first and last question drives the polluted stream of American politics.
The Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington think tank that tracks election spending, estimates that spending in the 2010 Congressional elections will total almost 4 billion. The five highest-spending Senate races were: Connecticut, $21 million. California $18 million; Nevada, where Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid spent $17 million, and Arizona, where Republican John McCain spent $17 million. Senatorial candidates in Arkansas spent $12 million. California GOP senatorial nominee Carly Fiorina spent nearly $6 million out of her own pocket to bag the party nomination. That's just for this election. The Center for Public Integrity found that the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, has spent nearly $50 million over the past quarter century on campaigning. One political financial watchdog group flatly branded this obscene spending legalized corruption.
The mind boggling runaway cost of elections has turned American politics into a rich person's sport, demolished any semblance of a political level playing field, and mocks the notion that voters have a Democratic choice. The Supreme Court's decision to rip away virtually all checks on corporate and labor union spending and its fresh assault on public financing (Arizona decision) will make political campaigning even more the playground of the super-rich.
Greene didn't simply beat these odds. He rewrote them. He is one antidote for those fed up with the stench of money and deal making in politics. Voters should take careful note of what Greene did in South Carolina with a felony rap hanging over him, with no name, no money, and seemingly not a prayer of a chance to win, and then does. That's what a Rocky can do, tainted though he may be.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press).
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/earlhutchinson
Alvin Greene has the mannerisms of a person who is carrying gilt or shame. Maybe it was the war, maybe it is his lack of political polish, that so many politicians seem to have, or maybe it is his lack of integrity that requires so many politicians to need political polish?
The thin and sparse statements made by Mr. Greene do not lend themselves to honesty. Alvin Greene did better in Republican districts than in Democratic ones, the numbers just don't add up. How can anyone convince an electorate to vote for them with such a poor set of communication skills.
Lack of communicative skills should not disqualify anyone from participating in the political process, however Mr. Greene should also not blame the jury when his lack of convincing and credible testimony gets him convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Greene as well as a Greenville, SC newspaper early in the process.
http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20100525/NEWS/305250032/Former-j...
His status as a veteran of both the USAF and US Army are confirmed, as is his B.A. in Poli-Sci from the University of South Carolina...
This fraud is going to blow up and it is going to blow up big. It is just a matter of time before he starts confessing everything.
http://www.csdaley.com/2010/06/x-files-south-carolina-style.html
http://www.csdaley.com/2010/06/south-carolina-politics-is-awesome.html
He's America's George 'Kingfish' Stevens the III or even better Lightening
mike_steele is jr.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/12697/64984
Being unemployed doesn't bother me there are plenty of Americans that are and it would say a lot if he actually ran a campaign without money or a job. Being unfamiliar with current and world events does bother me. I want a candidate that has at least attempted to apprise himself of issues that effect both his state and his country. The felony charge is also troublesome, I'll wait until the facts come out to make a judgment, but these charges do cause some concern.
It would be great to have a hard working blue collar American with no political background to go to congress and represent the people and not just special interests, but I don't think Alvin Greene is that person.
One must ask whether Bill Clinton would be asked to withdraw under identical circumstances.
Now...
Call me Racist !