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With the Republicans and Democrats now engaged in protracted trench warfare in Washington with each side dug in and not much going on save a few skirmishes, writing about politics seems pretty dull these days. Then Alvin Greene entered the picture.
If you have not heard about Greene you probably have been somewhere without a cell phone because these days he has Democrats both perplexed and fuming after his stunning win in the South Carolina Senate primary for the seat currently held by Strom Thurmond’s heir, Jim DeMint, who sometimes appears to be Thurmond’s ghost come back to haunt anyone who dares question states’ rights. In short, thirty-two year old Alvin Greene is an unemployed veteran who somehow managed to find $10,440 to register his candidacy.
According to the current South Carolina Democratic Party line no one thought much of Greene’s name being on the ballot because everyone expected former legislator Vic Rawl to win. Rawl was so confident he had already planned fundraisers for the fall general election. But Greene won the primary–and not just by a few votes. He trounced Rawl 59% to 41%., winning 42 of 48 counties. Rawl won his home city of Charleston by only 7%–an embarrassing showing against any opponent.
The Reaction
Greene’s win has South Carolina Democrats seeing red. A few quotes give you some idea of their mixture of anger and shock.
Dick Harpootlian, the former Democratic chairman of the state, used an interesting metaphor to describe the situation to the New York Times:
If there is an embarrassment equivalent of post-traumatic stress disorder, South Carolina has it.
Prominent South Carolina Democratic leaders including Representative James Clyburn registered their dismay, suggesting it was a Republican dirty trick worthy of the master of dirty tricks, Richard Nixon. Clyburn told the Christian Science Monitor:
There were some real shenanigans going on in the South Carolina primary. I don’t know if he was a Republican plant; he was someone’s plant.
Meanwhile national Democratic leaders ran for cover, with Democratic Senate Campaign Committee chairman Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) getting the award for dumbest quote:
We take our efforts and time in the states where we have the greatest calculus of being able to engage and win, so we weren’t engaged in South Carolina.
But the best quote of all goes to the loser, who sounds like a loser who never had a clue:
I can’t really make any comments, because I don’t know what’s going on.
White House advisor David Axelrod, caught blindsided by the event on Meet the Press gave the right soundbite:
I don’t really know how to explain it, and I don’t think anybody else does either.
Felony Charges
Things really heated up when the Associated Press uncovered the story that Greene was indicted on an obscenity charge last November in a case involving a white South Carolina college student. With the thinnest of veiled racism this charge has been blown into something sinister when the at least the Christian Science Monitor had the decency to put out the facts in the case stating he was arrested:
For “promoting obscenity” by allegedly showing a female college student obscene photos on a website in a public place.
The Monitor also said Greene has yet to be indicted for the charge. BET.com ran further information from the AP about the arrest including the following story from the woman involved:
“I said, ‘That’s offensive,’ and he sat there laughing,” said Camille McCoy, a rising sophomore who said Greene sat down next to her in a computer lab and asked her to look at pornographic photos on his screen. “He said, ‘Let’s go to your room now.’ It was kind of scary. He’s a pretty big boy. He could’ve overpowered me.”
McCoy called campus police and picked Greene out of a photo array.
This interview is strange on several accounts. Normally victims of any crime are instructed not to talk to the press because it might taint the case. Second, the incident took place in a computer lab, I suspect at the University of South Carolina (note the comment about campus police), where normally institutions lock down the machines to prevent access to pornography because of fear they might be liable. Third, if you are researching a case you also interview the law enforcement officials involved. There is nothing to indicate the press did that. Fourth, what did the University do in the case? Incidents like this can sometimes lead to more serious sexual assaults, so if there was a possibility that Greene was a sexual predator some action should have taken place. Finally, sexual predators often have multiple arrest records. Does Greene?
The charge has accomplished one thing: it has allowed South Carolina Democratic Party chair Carol Fowler to demand that Greene withdraw.
Since Greene’s crime is a felony, he would be ineligible to run for public office, but since he has yet to be indicted, let alone convicted, it seems interesting that Fowler should serve as judge, jury and executioner. In fact Fowler’s demand was yet another stupid move made by South Carolina Democrats since it could make it easy for Greene’s attorney to claim the case had been tainted and thus make it incapable for him to get a fair trial.
Meanwhile Rawls, the candidate who did not know “what was going on,” has filed a protest with–guess who–the South Carolina Democratic Party. Using the royal we, he told CBS News:
We have filed this protest not for my personal or political gain, but on behalf of the people of South Carolina. There is a cloud over Tuesday’s election. There is a cloud over South Carolina, that affects all of our people, Democrats and Republicans, white and African-American alike.
His web site details the reasons for his protest:
The well-documented unreliability and unverifiability [sic--you'll see later Rawl has trouble with grammar] of the voting machines.
The many voters and poll workers who continue to contact us with their stories of extremely unusual incidents while trying to vote and administer this election. These range from voters who repeatedly pressed the screen for me only to have the other candidate’s name appear, to poll workers who had to change program cards multiple times, to at least one voter in the Republican primary who had the Democratic U.S. Senate race appear on her ballot.
Who Is Alvin Greene?
Meanwhile the media are falling all over themselves asking, “Who is Alvin Greene.” Various reports have managed to dig up that he is an unemployed military veteran and not much else. The four thousand people of Manning, where Greene currently lives, are suddenly besieged by camera trucks and reporters. The press apparently hasn’t learned much other than that Greene moved in with his parents recently.
Apparently few of them have thought to use the Internet to search for information on Mr. Greene, so ever the one to track down primary sources here is what I have found. Greene’s address history tells more of the story than most of the press has been able to find out. It shows two in Manning, 3 in Columbia, 1 Apo,AE, 1 in San Angelo, Texas and 1 at Goodfellow Air Force Base, in Texas.
If we follow this string from the end it tells us Greene was in the Air Force and was sent to Goodfellow, which is an Air Force Training Center. The 17th Training group turns out “Fire Protection, and Special Instruments mission-ready warriors,” The 311th Training Squadron specializes in cryptologic linguist training and the 314th in language training. So Greene was trained in one of these areas. The linguistic training is unlikely merely because at Goodfellow those units train people who are already skilled in a language and there is no evidence Greene speaks a second language. That would leave fire protection and special instruments.
Following his training the APO address is for the military post office Europe which also includes Europe, Africa, Canada and the Middle East. So it is possible Greene served in Iraq. Philip Bump at Mediaite refers to Greene as an Iraq War vet, but that is the only source that does, so following the multiple source rule, we need to be cautious about that. After his discharge he lived in Columbia, where the obscenity charge was filed.
The Washington Post added a few more details:
The University of South Carolina confirms that Greene graduated in 2000 with a degree in political science. The Pentagon confirms that he served in the Army, and in the Army and Air Force national guards. Although Greene has not boasted of winning awards, the Pentagon says he was granted the Air Force Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and Korean Defense Service Medal.
I was all set to pay the $3 fee to find out more information when more research showed one site was the subject of numerous complaints and another one wanted $40 (why doesn’t some idiot reporter pay for this) So much for that. Mainly I wanted to know Greene’[s APO zip code which would tell me whether he had been in Iraq. I figure the search services are probably making a bundle on Alvin Greene (maybe that’s who paid his filing fee).
The Guessing Game
Everyone seems to have a theory about Alvin Greene and his victory. The most common is that he is, as Clyburn intimated, a GOP plant who won because of Republican crossovers. However, DeMint seems a virtual walk-in and it sounds like Rawl would have been the perfect opponent, so why spend money to find another.
The South Carolina election results website also shows there were a significant number of very close GOP primaries for state offices which also argues against a crossover vote. But the most compelling argument against Republican crossovers is that the GOP had a very visible and hotly-contested race for Governor, so not many would have wanted to cross-over in a Senate race that DeMint seems to have sewed up already.
A second theory says Greene won because his name was at the top of the ballot. This would imply that the 100,000 people who voted for Greene were basically idiots or, as Jon Stewart put it, Alan Aardvark will be the next governor of South Carolina. The third, more plausible theory is that it was either a slap at Rawl or a protest vote.
After that the theories get a little strange. A Manning resident suggested maybe people thought he was Al Green, the soul singer, but he spells his name without the “e” and anyone who knows Al Green knows that. Someone threw out a racist theory that African Americans turned out because the “e” at the end signifies he is a person of color in South Carolina.
Faux News, ever one to dig up dirt on Democrats, flat out stated Greene’s “involuntary discharge” was because he is mentally unstable. Faux quoted State Rep. Todd Rutherford, who visited Greene:
If he was put into this, then it is a joke that is funny to all the rest of us, but he doesn’t get it — because I don’t know that his mental status is such that he can get it.
Maybe Alvin Greene is Really Alvin Greene
Greene claims the funds to register came from his service discharge, which is plausible. This leads to another question, what if Alvin Greene is exactly who he says he is? While the media seem to stress Greene’s ignorance, he apparently is media savvy enough to wear green in every photograph I have seen of him.
So what if someone decided to just go for it and run in the primary; it is after all his money and people have done stranger things with ten thousand dollars. Is it possible that instead of some vast conspiracy we have a simple case of an American Dream in which someone decides to throw their hat into a race and wins?
I hate to play the race card, because in this case it is so easy–and so obvious. The portrait painted of Alvin Greene by much of the media is of a black man, who may or may not be guilty of a sex crime, who is unemployed, and who is not very bright.
Well, for being not very bright Alvin Greene is smart enough to have seized an opening in a race no one thought he could win and without spending any money walk off with an overwhelming victory. In any other circumstance that would make a compelling story–Unknown Candidate Decides to Enter Race and Wins!
The Data
As regular readers know I am big on data, especially election data, so I decided to check on the details of the South Carolina Democratic Senate Primary. Thanks to the South Carolina elections website it is possible to see the primary breakdown by county. It shows that Greene received his highest total–13,787–in Richland County whose major city, Columbia, happens to be the home of the state capital and the University of South Carolina–and also where Greene was arrested.
His third-highest vote total, 5,477, comes from none other than Rawl’s home county of Charleston where the second-place finisher totaled only 939 more votes than Greene. Other large Greene vote totals came from Greenville (5.849), Orangeburg (4,115), Sumter (4,328) and Florence (4,050) counties. Together this bloc along with Richland brought Greene 37,606 votes or 53% of Rawl’s total.
Census profiles of these counties show Richland is 46% African American, Charleston 30.8%, Florence 40.9%, Greenville 18.3%, Orangeburg 62.2%, and Sumter 47.6%. Besides Charleston Rawl won Lexington (82.3% white)–and that by only 200 votes, Jasper (49.7% white)–this by only 167 votes, and Lancaster (72% white)–this by only 82 votes.
While it is tempting to see Greene’s win coming from African American votes, without a racial breakdown we cannot confirm that for sure. Certainly three out of four of Rawl’s wins came in heavily white counties, but even in those counties his victory was hardly overwhelming. While Greene looks to have received solid support from African Americans, his support appears to be broader.
Who is Vic Rawl
A better question is “Who is Vic Rawl?” His election website refers to him as “Judge Rawl,” but that is not his current office which is city council member in Charleston, an office he admits he came out of retirement to run for.
His “On the Issues” page is a laundry list that includes jobs, education, climate change, renewable energy, net neutrality, and gun control. The pages on all of these are totally devoid of vision or even any semblance of specific policy proposals. Here is his position on financial reform:
Capitalism should be based on capital and work again.
For all the comments thrown at Alvin Greene’s lack of education, Judge Rawl apparently did not learn grammar very well. Read that sentence again and try to tell me what it means due to its lousy construction: is it capitalism should work again or capitalism should be both capital and work or what? Ignoring the grammar what is this man for? Of course capitalism needs both work and capital.
One gets the impression this man would not make a very good contestant on Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader.
The Democratic Party
Is this the best the Democratic Party could do in South Carolina as their designated candidate? Should we then ask why people voted for Alvin Greene? Given the choice between a known idiot and an unknown candidate what would you have done?
What is more confounding is didn’t Rawl or the Democrats run any polls before the primary? If they didn’t they were stupid and if they did the pollsters obviously ought to be fired. From all appearances Rawl and the Democrats appear to have blown off any possibility that they might lose. That was a fatal mistake.
The arrogance and ignorance of Rawl (both of which are on display at his web site) totally dismissed Alvin Greene. And now he and the Democrats want to void the election. Nice way to build a party in South Carolina, especially with the 100,000 who voted for Greene.
If you watched the World Cup this weekend you probably saw the improbable muff the British goalie made to give the United States team a tie with a team Sport Illustrated has in the finals. The South Carolina Senate primary looks a lot like that goal–only the British goalie took his mistake like a man and did not ask for a redo, or blame the obviously slippery ball or his defenders.
If you watched Jon Stewart tonight you saw one of his better monologues as he subjected South Carolina Democrats to his withering wit.
The Long View
There are so many lessons from this that it is hard to know where to begin.
First, unless something unexpected comes up about Greene’s candidacy it says a great deal about the state of American politics. People not only in South Carolina but across the country are tired of candidates like Vic Rawl. They are tired of being ignored by party bosses who pick candidates like Vic Rawl and expect us to vote for them. They are tired of candidates like Vic Rawl who have no vision.
On the positive side, if someone like Alvin Greene can win a primary in South Carolina who is to say someone else could not do the same in some other state. In my home state of Minnesota, there was a race where everyone figured the Republican Senate candidate, like Jim DeMint, was a shoe-in so none of the major “leaders” stepped up to run against him. Instead a little-known community activist and college professor named Paul Wellstone took up the challenge. Lacking funds he traveled the state in a beat-up green bus (hear that Alvin Greene) and achieved what many people saw as a long shot. Paul Wellstone went on to become one of Minnesota’s most revered senators.
There are Paul Wellstones all over the country, but that the present structure freezes them out. Maybe Alvin Greene is trying to tell us something about that.
On a larger scale, it is interesting to see how the media have played this. There is behind their coverage a barely-screened contempt for ordinary Americans. Maybe Alvin Greene is not as articulate as Barack Obama orhe never has held political office. Yet from the sound of it Greene is not that far behind where Sarah Palin was when she first hit the national stage (incidentally to a similar reception). His platform makes more sense than Vic Rawl’s.
That contempt is also directed at those who voted for Greene. I find it very interesting that we have not had any interviews with those who did vote for Greene. The college professors are not studying the whys, but seemingly blowing them off.
The most fascinating part of the Alvin Greene story is how he has become a mirror for various perspectives instead of a real person. This is a man who must have friends, family, those who knew him in school and in the service and the media do not seem to be doing much to track them down. He even apparently lives with his parents but I have not seen an interview with either of them. You would think people would be asking them what they thought of their son’s victory.
In the end no matter how the Alvin Greene story plays out (maybe it is all a hoax) the real issue will be that no one has really taken the time to know Greene. When I read the empty stories about Greene all I can think of is Ralph Ellison’s lines:
I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids – and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.
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