Alvin Greene’s New Political Paradigm
If we learned nothing else from the 2010 South Carolina Senate primary race, it’s that democracy in action is an awesome thing to observe.
As some regular readers are already aware, I’ve been involved in running a congressional campaign out in New York state. And I have to tell you, it’s a lot of work. There are petitions to file, phone banks to organize, door-to-door walks to coordinate, and endless hours of activities related to fundraising. There are many days where members of the staff are fortunate if they get five hours of sleep. And still we face a steep hill to climb in our race.
Who knew that we were doing it entirely wrong?
Alvin Greene has been showing us the way forward, carving out a new path for American politics in the 21st century. With little to no attention paid by either the local or national media, Greene launched a campaign for the Democratic nomination in his race which nobody saw coming. He didn’t knock on any doors. He called almost no one. The only “rallies” he held — as reported in one of the shorter interviews in Senate race history — were “local events” with friends. He printed no campaign signs and didn’t even put up a website.
Alvin also found a way to put a new spin on a tried and true political theme. He’s a veteran! But unlike many candidates who either rely on their DD-214 and a nominal record or service, or embellish their military bona fides with tales of awards not earned, Greene had himself kicked out of the military on grounds which he described as “things just not working.”
Speaking as a veteran myself, I have to say that I’ve never heard of that clause in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It was simple … elegant… brilliant.
And in a bold move which none of his potential opponents saw coming, Mr. Greene managed to get himself arrested early in the campaign on a charge of “disseminating, procuring, or promoting obscenity” to a young lady — a violation which carries a potential sentence of five years in prison and a hefty fine. So bold was this maneuver that the ever vigilant press — both local and national — was apparently shocked into silence. Much like the poets in Bruce Springsteen’s immortal anthem “Jungleland,” they chose to simply “stand back and let it all be.”
For those of us mired in colonial era mentalities, these actions surely carry the stench of disaster. But for the forward thinkers on Team Greene the result was doubtless predictable. Alvin surged to victory with roughly 60% of the vote.
A relatively unknown black candidate with no visible pertinent experience wins an upset victory in a prominent election, with accusations flying that he did not arrive there without substantial and undocumented financial aid from sinister and murky outside sources … this could be the Obama story all over again. How heartwarming. The next step for Alvin is to “write” a couple of memoirs now before the election.
This is merely a precursor for voting machine results in 2010 and 2012…
no more votes than there are voters please….
I think Americans in general are intellectually equivalent to Alvin Greene;
Americans still can not figure out they finance the war against themselves every day at the gas pump, and neither can Alvin.
Americans, up till yesterday, could not explain cellulose ethanol; and neither can Alvin
Americans love to believe “well researched” rubbish: like the ethanol BTU “thang”; and so would Alvin!
Americans voted for Obama, and so did Alvin!
Et Al;
It will not surprise me if he wins; if it were not for the criminal charges, I think he would win.
His analytical abilities are as good as anyone in the forth estate. And he is certainly the politically correct color.
Who would say that anyone in congress today is less honest than Alvin?
He couldn’t be any worse than the Socialists (Democrats) we have in Congress now.
I always wonder who the people working the phone banks and walking the neighborhoods are talking to. Any politician (of any stripe) who calls my phone is going to get a oneliner like, “I’m sorry; I don’t need you to tell me what to think” as I hang up. And any politician (of any stripe) who shows up at my door is going to get a quizzical look that plainly communicates, “Don’t you have anything better to do with your time today? Get off my deck. Now.”
I’m still dreaming of the day that oblameya shows up on my deck to make a neighborhood call for media purposes and I get to say to him, in public, in broadlight, “You have 30 seconds to get off my property. Starting……5 seconds ago.”
Wonder where the NAACP,Al Sharpton,Jessie Jackson are hiding @ ???The Democrats get another FREE PASS on calling Mr. Greene a MENTAL DEFICIT.If it had been the Republicans who called into play a BLACK MANS lack of intelligence the RACE BAITER’S would be out in full force.Can anyone please tell me why only the right can be RACIEST & never the LEFT??? The word RACIST now has no meaning what so ever,the next time it’s used by the LEFT Mr. Greene’s case will come to the forefront.
Definitely something going on here. . . .watched an interview with the dude on local TV, and he is barely coherent. . .is he a plant? who knows? but if he is, maybe it is a little payback for all the dems who voted in the Repub presidential primary and helped make RINO Mccain the choice against the “o”. . . payback is a bitch, ain’t it?
Mike Judge’s “Idiocracy” may be the most accurate prophecy ever. The only part he got wrong – it is set too far in the future.
I had the same thought when Dwayne Alessandro Camacho was ellected, sir.
Complete satire of course. Surely Jazz is not glorifying the destruction of our electoral process. Surely he is not advocating that election fraud be “papered over” by the MSM. Surely Jazz is not writing that any black man (or woman)can become a US Senator because their race is congruent with the president’s race.
Jazz, of course, is NOT intimating that now Greene, along with Rangle, Waters, Clyburn, Lewis and all the CBC got there because of their race? Why that would be declaring that blacks put their race before what is good for the nation. That racial politics trumps public service for the good of all citizens; that racial politics used by blacks and hispanics is okay but used by white Americans is racist—no Jazz would not be okay with that, would he?
Crime is not a disqualification for public office. Should we bother to list the number of representatives and senators who committed crimes, some for which they were convicted, who continued to be reelected?
Living proof that a South Carolina Democrat voter will vote for anything if he is told to pull the D lever. If said Democrat voter doesn’t recognize any of the names of the individuals running then the candidate who is first alphabetically has a substantial advantage.
What a great consituency to have if you could care less about the responsibility of governing and only want to promote your own well being at the public expense.
Makes you want to rethink that universal sufferage stuff again doesn’t it?
Never was much for universal sufferage. The old property requirement made sense – so people who voted weren’t voting other folks’ stuff for themselves. I’m also fond of the Starship Trooper service requirement. Either or both would result in far more responsible (and smaller) government.
Bizarre primary. SC, from the time I spent there, does truly embrace the US military (which, give the fact that it was that same army that defeated them is a psychological study itself) so anyone who gets kicked out would be reviled. I just wonder if this was a dry run at totally manipulating an election. How about “let’s try stuffing the ballot box in a race that has no meaning — say the Democratic primary in oh, South Carolina, just so we see which tactics work best.”
This smells real fishy. I hate to be paranoid, but given who is in power in the currently dominant party, I just don’t trust what’s going on.
psst: “the win to an uniformed electorate” don’t you mean uniNformed?
It is difficult to “knock” success, but there is something wrong with this picture. The alternative is in the article: the voters just pulled the first lever there was. In a heavily illiterate society, this is what happens. Thank you to the federal education Department – you did the job that you were assigned.
Simultaneously, I sense an increase in the number of Alvin Aardvarks running in the next few elections.
If there is starker evidence that a strong anti-incumbent tide is running, I am not aware of it. Were I a politician anywhere I would be worried, very worried.
I think that the Springsteen reference should be to “Jungleland”
This whole situation is interesting and funny. I think it’s the 21st century, though.
One thing, about the talk that Alvin Greene is a plant (not mentioned in the article). It is easily put to rest with the fact that he didn’t even campaign. Usually when you “plant” something you also water it. No campaigning (no watering) obviously means it was the voters fault.
Also, what has Alvin shown us? The election process is apparently still equitable for the purposes it was designed for – allowing people with possibly no credentials to have a chance at election. The voters need to get it together. This seems to show how fragile Democracy really is.
If he was a plant he didn’t have any reason to campaign! He was going to win so matter what.
Considering that in many precincts Greene was credited with more votes than were cast, considering that Greene won many precincts where the absentee ballots had run 2-1 or better against him, this all stinks like a week-old mackerel.
In fact, it looks to me like a wildly successful test-run of the DNC/ACORN vote fraud methods for November.
Maybe it IS a DNC/ACORN dry run.
Also, Alvin may be there and backed to do Obama’s bidding with no back talk.
Perhaps he IS a “Dem plant”… Think simplistic…
“OR!!!” it is SC throwing the first volley to say
……”incumbents will not be going back in” no matter what voters are faced with…
The people in office there now might be embarrassed and making excuses.. Don’t sell the people in SC short. It may be a deliberate effort
It’s a sad commentary on the state of the Democratic party, when 60% of the voters choose someone they had never heard of over the official, party backed candidates.
Maybe instead of being anti-incumbent, the good people of SC are telling us that they are anti-party boss selection. Follow my thinking, the ballot has the names of several party endorsed all over the airwaves, on the sides of buses, lawn signs candidates and one not so much as a printed handout sheet canidate. Which one do the people vote for? The people elect, by a ginormous margin, the guy with no pre-election exposure. I don’t believe the criminal record had any bearing since, A: no one knew about it and B: it’s almost a requirement to get elected as a Democrat now days.
The SC voters are telling the party regulars that business as usual is not going to happen this year.
Who has ever said coherency was a prerequisite to holding office?
I also love the excuse for leaving the army; it sounds like he is describing an amicable split from a girlfriend on the Rikki Lake show. “Yeah, Uncle Sam and I decided to just be friends. We love each other, we are just not IN love with each other.”
I’d be careful what I ‘conclude’ at this stage of the game. With the majority of “democrats”and a great number of Republicans outwardly supporting totalitarian despotic tyrannical Marxist regimes around the world as “models of democracy”, “good government”, and “rational thinking leadership” I’d put money on some sort of shenanigans on the ‘post’ ballot side this equation. All of the above use election manipulation techniques with (apparently) support from our congress, the POTUS and the majority of his administration. Recent insistent ‘changes’ to the election machinery in the name of “fairness” after the 2000 election to machines that were clearly suspect at that time as susceptible to manipulation have had “experimental” opportunities in the recent past. And have been proven, in some instances, to have been ‘faulty’.
This shows just how uneducated and blindly partisan the Democrats are.
This mans win could not be more iconic of Obama’s “win.”
Listened to this guy being interviewed by what one would think would be a friendly Black CNN interviewer, and this inarticulate, monosyllabic clod has the I.Q of a Turnip, and is, thus, perfect for Washington.
Yo!
I enjoy the sarcasm but this is just a little bit sinister in it’s implications. Are we at a point where skin color and street creds are enough to win political contests or am I just a right wing, racist, pig?
“Alvin surged to victory with roughly 60% of the vote”
Sounds like voters knew his opponent very, very well and this counted more in the pooling booth than ignorance.
Why would a 60% win surprise anyone except those that have ignored the final count examples demonstrated in recent close races? Voter fraud has been used successfully even before LBJ was seated after a court house fire destroyed the evidence of voting tombstones.
Politicians learn quickly that party machines are well financed and ruthlessly effective by any means available.
With rampant dishonesty in DC and no change expected in main stream media’s two party haggling why would anyone assume that an honest vote count will occur in November? Expect court delays to be accomplice to hiding the truth.
Hoping for the best and preparing for the worst, the next unavoidable question would be “What does one do for Plan B?”. If you don’t have one, get one.
He is smart enough not to comment on an ongoing criminal investigation. He is still innocent by the way.
The military sucks who wouldn’t want to quit that crap.
And to the wanna-be white interrogator on CNN who just breezed over his platform to move on to the really important issue of weather he sent a pornographic picture to a girl he was interested in, gosh golly television news is so informative these days.
I hope he wins. If he is able to take this hurricane of bullsh!t and still come out on top, he deserves to be a congressman.
Enlisted life in the military can really suck at times and U.S. Senator certainly pays better. On the other hand, you signed a contract and swore an oath, so quitting before the end of your enlistment is known as DISHONORABLE. If he didn’t take that oath seriously, why would he take essentially the same oath seriously as a Senator?
“you signed a contract and swore an oath”
Yeah tell that to my ex-wife.
Green’s discharge was Honorable. So the military let him out of the contract.
Their reason for doing so is none of your concern.
You can’t have access to his medical records either.
It is possible to tell if someone is qualified for a position without invading their private life.
No matter what the media tells you.
Say folks, we have had this “Roman” Senate since LBJ.
“Are we at a point where skin color and street creds are enough to win political contests or am I just a right wing, racist, pig?”
Yes.
Both are true. When you speak the truth about the first part, that automatically makes you a rwrp referenced in the second part. See how that works? (I’m a rwrp, too)
Also, aside from this guy obviously not being a plant, the voters probably DID vote according to the name phonetics. The word ‘green’ is sure to be a turn on for airheads.
Just think, you’re a newly registered voter from the Obama campaign voter round-ups and you find yourself in a voting booth with names you don’t know, or can’t remember specifically in front of you. Two things, and only two things make sense at the moment, the “D”, and the word “Green”.
Since you are reading this, you are way out at the end of the bell curve. At the middle and to the left, most inhabitants think that if something rhymes, it is true.
what if ,as I read on another post,he is just a bit uneasy with cameras?? what if he is actually a legit person who has a problem speaking in public?? I would rather have a man who has such defects and can make good choices,than have a man that has only the gift of gab read from a teleprompter……….just saying…
In my neck of the woods, we get pre-election mailers from the government. They list all the bills and candidates. Photos, too. SC is what, 19% black? Was his opponent white? I have yet to meet a black who wasn’t completely tribal.
Combine this with anti-incumbency from everyone else, and you get 60% victory.
30% actually.
I’m from South Carolina and not to seem like a “right wing racist pig,” but usually the black majority votes democrat en masse based on first: who is identified with their community the most, second: who is most visible. That being the case, I have no answers. Something fishy going on here. However, that kind-of-thing usually happens along that side of the state.
Im from SC as well …50 to 60% of the democratic vote in the democratic party in the state is black and weve seen that they vote race (96%) before policy or competence … so no surprise here. It also explains why the party didnt bounce him off the ticket …. fear of losing the vote of their base…what a world!
Great page. Wasn’t it the Democrats that supported and elected a bonafide draft dodger in Slick Willie Clinton? Hey, Alvin Greene served his country. Wasn’t it the Democrats who supported and elected a bonafide womanizer with accusations hanging over his head concerning possible rape charges in Slick Willie Clinton? Heck, Slick Willie Clinton carried these perverted habits right into the Oval Office with a “plumber” in a blue dress. Heck, what is so bad about a possible felony charge for showing off some indecent photos? James Clyburn and the other Democrats at the time didn’t have a problem with all those “shannagans.”
The State Run Media has spent more time vetting a poor black man from South Carolina than they did with Barack Obama. Wouldn’t you think the State Run Media would have more of a problem with a hardened Marxist as a candidate than a poor black man from South Carolina. Leave the man alone, RUN ALVIN RUN – screw the bigots. They all sound racist to me!!
So why can’t it be someone that is fed up with “politics as usual” and decided, “I’m gonna run, might be made a fool, but you have to do something.”
Lo, and behold, by word of mouth, he’s elected. I know someone that did vote for him, just based on the fact he WAS NOT a career politician, and was a veteran. He’s white and not all that happy with those in Washington right now. Word of mouth, Greene IS NOT a party insider. For many, that was all it took.
There are many plain speaking people that would have a hard time in an attempt to have a conversation with an adversarial media. I’d shut-up too and say as little as humanly possible too. I do wish Mr. Greene well on his endeavor.
I remember Greene from Ft. Riley and YES he is a plant, the kind you have to water every day or he begins to wilt and die….Oh and it helps if you talk to him, helps em grow=)
Name one person on the planet who believes that ANY Democrat has a snowball’s chance in a pizza oven against Jim DeMint. SC is a top-two conservative state, and Dems are wasting their time with this race.
So who cares whether the SC Dem party is so pathetic that it allows an unemployed, dishonorably discharged nutzo to win its senate primary. This story is not about Alvin Greene — it is about the SC Democratic Party, which might as well not exist.
I understood that it was “not” a dishonorable discharge. He has many medals and commendations from service in the military. Maybe he has hit on hard times, i don’t know, neither does anyone else at this point.
I dont’ know why it so hard to understand that SC voted for who they wanted…
Because the person that the Democrats wanted to win didn’t win, suddenly it’s fraud.
I listened to Shephard Smith speak with Green yesterday it was one snarky one attack after another. Smith was judge jury and executioner.It was humiliating.
SC voted and the Democrats cannot accept that they made a decision on their own, without millions on advertising and no back slappin with the good ole boys..
Here is my post on this issue. Another poster had received an email reportedly from a Czech citizen. In a paragraph the Czech sized up our problem. I’ll repeat it here.
http://truthandcommonsense.com/2010/06/15/from-a-czech-a-message-to-all-of-us-an-opinoin-on-who-the-idiots-really-are/
“The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency .It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.”
Ouch…and from a person from Eastern Europe. That’s like having a leper say, “Dude, those are some nasty looking boils on your body!”
Of course, this isn’t from a Czech source. It’s a home grown made-in-USA right wing screed for the ignorant that’s been around since at least http://professoroflife101.blogspot.com/2009/12/this-is-frightening-time-for-america.html
But commmenters on this site seem ready to believe anything.
Dems need to be happy that SC doesn’t have accumulative voting as recently approved in NY>>>> disgusting
Check it out on the banner.. ” Accumulative voting”.. maybe that happened in SC after all…
The vote was not a referendum on Alvin Green, The vote was a selection among several candidates.
I am curious about the legal charge. I understand that at a ‘public’ computer (a computer at a college) he called up a dirty picture and called a girl’s attention to it.
How is there a FELONY charge? WHO has chosen to pursue this prosecution? What is the common, or the standard handling of an incident like this in this particular jurisdiction? This seems to me, exceptional.
All we have is the girl’s word, how can it mean more than his/
I’m surprised Allred isn’t glued to her side.
OBAMA-GREENE 2012