The Curious Case of Alvin Greene

[jimrtex]

I'm actually more interested in why it costs that kind of money to file for election? Seems it's not even a deposit? How can that be constitutional in any democracy? Pretty perv.

Yeah, that's a disgusting little detail. I suppose the justification is some bullshit along the lines of 'the costs of running the election'.

The South Carolina election commissions says the fee is set by the parties, but the link takes you to a single sheet.  So maybe the two parties agreed to the fees.

The fee for US Senate is 6% of the salary.  The fee for US House is 2% of salary (Representative and Senators are paid the same salary, so it looks like they said OOPs we better make them different percentages)

Fees for state and county offices appear to be 4% of salary, so there are some judgeships in larger counties where the fee is around $5000.  So Greene got a bargain for a statewide race.

If a state requires parties to nominate by primary, it has to pay for the primary, and the filing fee is set by the state, and there has to be a in lieu of petitioning process.  South Carolina doesn't not require parties to nominate by primaries.

South Carolina appears to have some election laws that have been left over from the time when the the parties (or party at that time) ran their own primaries.  But the State has become involved in actually running the primaries, probably related to the VRA.

Some States set high fees and low or no petition standards.  When you have low fees and high petition standards, you have candidates cheating and keeping other candidates off the ballot by challenging their petitions (like Obama did when he ran for state senator).  In some states, petitions are presumed to be valid, unless someone challenges them.  So you can have someone file with 100 signature when they need 10,000 and get on the ballot.  And someone else files 100 signatures and they get challenged and knocked off the ballot.

So it is actually more practical and fairer to charge a high fee.  Serious candidates pay the fee because it is cheaper than collecting a bunch of signatures.

Kendrick Meek filed his in lieu petition for publicity purposes.  He spent a lot more collecting them than the fee would have been.

[jimrtex]

I find it rather amusing that nobody bothered to explain, or at least speculate, how this guy found the money to file for election and why he even decided to do that.

I mean, the guy is an indigent accused for felony but all of a sudden decides that it would be a good idea to run for the US Senate? What's wrong with this picture?

He say he decided to run when he was serving in Korea.  He was separated from the Army last August, and arrested in November.  He hasn't been indicted, so it sounds like perhaps he is in some sort of diversion program.

[jimrtex]

Greene lives with his mom and Obama is a Harvard/Columbia graduate...Obama actually has charisma...

Greene shares a home with his 81-year old father, who has had kidney dialysis treatment and had a heart attack 4 years ago.  His brother lives next door, in a small town in rural SC.  Maybe if his grandmother was a bank vice president, he could have gone to prep school.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Pardon my ignorance. Yes, I could use google, but I prefer to ask here.

So, who the feck is Alvin Greene?

[minionofmidas]

The Democratic Senate nominee from South Carolina. Pictured in my sig.

An unemployed ex-soldier of 32, and noone knows where the money to file for election came from. He won the primary 60-40 because his opponent was just as completely unknown except in Charleston COunty and to political insiders, and had a recognizably white name and was listed in second position on the ballot.
It doesn't matter anyways because people are happy with republican incumbent Jim DeMint.

[Magic 8-Ball]

The most brilliant political mind of our time.

[minionofmidas]

The most brilliant political mind of our time.

That too.

[Rowan]

great interview on the Mark Levin Show

http://www.marklevinshow.com/goout.asp?u=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/06/14/sc-sen_alvin_greene_cant_immediately_name_gop_opponent_jim_demint.html

It sounds like it is physically painful for him to answer questions.

[nhmagic]

The more and more I see from this the more I see that the democrats are embarrased because they dont want what they see as "a dumb black man" being a representative of their party.  This is the same thing they were doing with Patterson in NY.  I see a man who's normal, who wants to have a voice about the issues but hasnt found his own voice yet.  He's articulating his feelings.  Sure dems can get upset and stamp their feet, but democracy was never meant for the elites only.  Our founding fathers would be proud.  I bet Greene would do a better job than all of the democrats currently holding office (though its too bad hes up against DeMint, i wish it was the other senator from SC, Grahamnesty).

[Tender Branson]

What is the question of this poll ?

[Eraserhead]

The more and more I see from this the more I see that the democrats are embarrased because they dont want what they see as "a dumb black man" being a representative of their party.  This is the same thing they were doing with Patterson in NY.  I see a man who's normal, who wants to have a voice about the issues but hasnt found his own voice yet.  He's articulating his feelings.  Sure dems can get upset and stamp their feet, but democracy was never meant for the elites only.  Our founding fathers would be proud.  I bet Greene would do a better job than all of the democrats currently holding office (though its too bad hes up against DeMint, i wish it was the other senator from SC, Grahamnesty).

DERRRR DUMBOCRATS BADDD

[Eraserhead]

great interview on the Mark Levin Show

http://www.marklevinshow.com/goout.asp?u=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/06/14/sc-sen_alvin_greene_cant_immediately_name_gop_opponent_jim_demint.html

He has his bachelor's in political science? That should make so many of us feel special.

[CatoMinor]

http://www.therightscoop.com/jon-stewart-defends-republicans-against-planting-accusations-of-alvin-greene

John Stewart had a good segment about him last night.

[J. J.]

While the GOP could have put up the money for the filing fee, and it would not surprise me, they were not the voters in primary.  The Democrats did that to themselves.

[Gustaf]

I'm beginning to move into the pity camp on this guy.

Anyway, I can think of two theories, one super-paranoid and one more mundane.

Super-paranoid: the guy took a bachelor degree in pol sci, so he was once smart. Then he got into the intelligence service and he emerges dumb as a door-knob and with seeming memory loss of his time in the service. So, maybe he was involved in something top secret and weird and was brain-washed/damaged so as to not leak something. Someone with money did this in order to set the limelight on him and make it public without having to come forward themselves.

Mundane: the guy is a weirdo who has saved money for a long time in order to run because, it is a fixation of his. He lied about the public defense thing. And that's pretty much it. Maybe some Republican guy put him upto it, maybe not.

[Lunar]

I'm beginning to move into the pity camp on this guy.

Anyway, I can think of two theories, one super-paranoid and one more mundane.

Super-paranoid: the guy took a bachelor degree in pol sci, so he was once smart. Then he got into the intelligence service and he emerges dumb as a door-knob and with seeming memory loss of his time in the service. So, maybe he was involved in something top secret and weird and was brain-washed/damaged so as to not leak something. Someone with money did this in order to set the limelight on him and make it public without having to come forward themselves.

Mundane: the guy is a weirdo who has saved money for a long time in order to run because, it is a fixation of his. He lied about the public defense thing. And that's pretty much it. Maybe some Republican guy put him upto it, maybe not.

Or the normal: Some operative paid him a little money to file his name on the petition.

[Sam Spade]

Lunar's is the only theory worth paying attention to (not the voter fraud crap), imo, but the facts present to us right now fail to provide the connection that he suspects is going on.

[Lunar]

Lunar's is the only theory worth paying attention to (not the voter fraud crap), imo, but the facts present to us right now fail to provide the connection that he suspects is going on.

Something that may be interesting though, is that $10,000 is, I believe, the exact amount that someone can write you a check for that causes the bank to automatically red flag the transaction and pass it along to the government for inspection.

It's how Eliot was caught.  So if an AG's office were to inspect, they might not have to even subpoena very far, depending on how well the tracks were covered

[Sam Spade]

Lunar's is the only theory worth paying attention to (not the voter fraud crap), imo, but the facts present to us right now fail to provide the connection that he suspects is going on.

Something that may be interesting though, is that $10,000 is, I believe, the exact amount that someone can write you a check for that causes the bank to automatically red flag the transaction and pass it along to the government for inspection.

It's how Eliot was caught.  So if an AG's office were to inspect, they might not have to even subpoena very far, depending on how well the tracks were covered

If they were stupid enough to transfer the $10K at once, they deserve to get caught.  Heck, if they gave it to him via anything other than cash, in small amounts, they deserve to get caught.  We'll see.

[Lunar]

Hell, I mean, Eliot Spitzer did it, and he was a high-level lawyer with familiarity with this kind of thing.  But to use his words, maybe he was just "Icarus" and "flew too close to the Sun"

The idea that Alvin Greene may not have covered his tracks perfectly wouldn't surprise me.

And again, this could be either a Democratic operative (as without Greene, Rawls wouldn't have his name appear on the primary ballot in South Carolina) or a Republican one.

[Lunar]

Good points here...  Weigel's talking about Cohen when he mentions Illinois fwiw

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-now/2010/06/what_if_alvin_greene_just_won.html

You see what Democrats are doing. It's possible, as happened in Illinois earlier this year, that a party can become saddled with a bad nominee and shame him/her into stepping down. But let's be clear -- the Democratic claim that Greene was planted is based on a lot of vapor and little evidence. Sure, it's possible that South Carolina's warring Republican consultants have taken a blood oath and are revealing nothing about the plan to help Greene get on the ballot. But the best explanation for Greene's win remains the easy one -- Democrats who didn't care about the race marked the first and (marginally) more familiar name on the ballot.

How often does this happen? It happened one month ago in Indiana. Democrats held a low-interest primary for the right to take on Rep. Dan Burton. Everyone in the party backed Nasser Hanna, a professor who raised $110,995 and spent a little less than a third of that. Nobody endorsed Tim Crawford, an unemployed conservative activist who spent no money. Yet Crawford not only won -- he crushed him with 60.9 percent of the vote, a bigger margin than Greene scored in South Carolina. He won every single county.

What happened? Crawford's name was first on the ballot and -- though we're getting into rougher territory -- it resembles those of voters in the district more than "Nasser Hanna." (Hillary Clinton won this district over Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary.)

It's frustrating for party strategists to realize that its electorate is so sleepy, their candidates so disengaged, that stuff like this can happen. But the day after Greene won, before this spinning started, DSCC Chairman Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) explained that Democrats simply didn't engage in the race. The subsequent charges of GOP trickery don't have a basis in the facts.

[J. J.]

Lunar's is the only theory worth paying attention to (not the voter fraud crap), imo, but the facts present to us right now fail to provide the connection that he suspects is going on.

Something that may be interesting though, is that $10,000 is, I believe, the exact amount that someone can write you a check for that causes the bank to automatically red flag the transaction and pass it along to the government for inspection.

It's how Eliot was caught.  So if an AG's office were to inspect, they might not have to even subpoena very far, depending on how well the tracks were covered

No, on several accounts (no pun intended).  First the $10,000 is for cash transactions.  It doesn't apply to thinks like checks or wire transfers.

Second, they do keep track of smaller wire transactions/checks, if they look suspicious.  I think all of Spitzer's transactions were four digits, but he had a lot of them.  They originally thought he was on the take.

Third, though your facts were wrong, as usual, your premise could be right.  Four cash transactions of $2,500, one each month, probably wouldn't raise any official interest.

I know I'm suspicious of where Greene suddenly got $10K.  That doesn't change the fact that that $10K doesn't translate into votes.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The fee for US Senate is 6% of the salary.  The fee for US House is 2% of salary (Representative and Senators are paid the same salary, so it looks like they said OOPs we better make them different percentages)

Fees for state and county offices appear to be 4% of salary, so there are some judgeships in larger counties where the fee is around $5000.  So Greene got a bargain for a statewide race.

The figure is 1% of the annual salary, times the number of years the office is for.  So DeMint and Clyburn end up paying the same amount after six years, it's just that Clyburn gets to pay for his safe seat in three easy installments.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Lunar will likely soon have his answers!

http://www.thestate.com/2010/06/28/1353788/us-sen-race-greenes-finances-subject.html

"Harpootlian, who has extensive criminal law experience, said it’s rare for law enforcement to actually verify bank accounts of people who claim they don’t have enough money to hire a private attorney and therefore qualify for a taxpayer-paid lawyer. If someone deliberately lied about their financial resources to get a free lawyer, Harpootlian said, that could be grounds for criminal charges."

[Lunar]

Roger Stone brings up a great point about Alvin Greene: the fact that his name begins with the letter "A" shows that he was very likely picked under the process he knows as "Aardvarking"

http://stonezone.com/

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