The Curious Case of Alvin Greene

[Lunar]

I will say that from reading some of Greene's statements, he seems to be insane.

Where did he get the $10k to run, but then not campaign at all, as he still lives with his parents and is unemployed?

[Lunar]

But he's so well spoken...
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/meet-south-carolina-senate-shocker-10870806

WOW. What a weird video. And yet, some might like a man of few words like that.

Why does the DSSC care about this, again?

Why is Menendez waisting press time pushing people out of a South Carolina race?  

And, it should be said, Greene's win here has nothing to do with his race.  The turnout maps don't reflect that, and the fact that Greene didn't campaign whatsoever, and no one knew who we was, should certainly affect that.  Hell, there's a billionaire self-funder running in the Florida Democratic primary, who is Jewish, with the last name Greene.

He won the primary by a greater amount than Obama beat Mccain in 2008 nationally.  If the choice of the national or statewide Democrats can't run over 40% in the Democratic primary, it's time to move on.  I don't see why it's even worth printing a few pieces of paper, at 1 cent each, for the national Democratic party.   DeMint is going to be DeMint, and focus his attention nationally, no matter who you run.  

[Lunar]

But he's so well spoken...
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/meet-south-carolina-senate-shocker-10870806

WOW. What a weird video. And yet, some might like a man of few words like that.

Why does the DSSC care about this, again?

Why is Menendez waisting press time pushing people out of a South Carolina race?  

And, it should be said, Greene's win here has nothing to do with his race.  The turnout maps don't reflect that, and the fact that Greene didn't campaign whatsoever, and no one knew who we was, should certainly affect that.  Hell, there's a billionaire self-funder running in the Florida Democratic primary, who is Jewish, with the last name Greene.

He won the primary by a greater amount than Obama beat Mccain in 2008.  If the choice of the national or statewide Democrats can't run over 40% in the Democratic primary, it's time to move on.  I don't see why it's even worth printing a few pieces of paper, at 1 cent each, for the national Democratic party.   DeMint is going to be DeMint, and focus his attention nationally, no matter who you run. 

No idea. Pipe dream that this odd occurrence could lead to a better candidate/a better shot in the fall?

That's all I've got, and it ain't much. It's still Safe GOP.

Probably less of a pipe dream, and more of a desire for a squeaky clean candidate who may not draw negative national press attention for an ongoing investigation or whatever that thing is that Greene's got.

Also, surely is somewhat of an obligation of the national party to the local party which is solidly behind the other candidate.

Imo, the best solution for the DSCC would have been to ignore the results entirely, and if they generated coverage, THEN push for him to withdrawal.

[Lunar]

I still can't get over this. My friend, who worked for the Rawl campaign, is still in shock today.

How much work did the Rawl campaign do?  Did they get the endorsement of every county party, travel the state and put 50k miles on their truck, etc?

Or did they take their primary as a given, and hoard money, and wait until the general, when they could actually start taking more conservative positions?

Obviously you wouldn't want to begin your campaign in South Carolina with a bunch of progressive debates to give your nobody opponent name recog, but still, you have to do SOMETHING...

[Lunar]

It's interesting because there are rumors of an IE direct mail boost for Greene annd he's unemplloyed and qualified for a public defender, which in SC requires that you show proof that you live in poverty, how did he get ten thousand dollarrs??!

[Lunar]

Actually, there were three similar black candidates, another unknown who beat the party favorite in a Congressional race as well.

Some GOP operatives are interestingly accusing him of being a Democratic plant.  The reasoning: if you're unopposed in your primary, you don't appear on the ballot in South Carolina.  Obviously you want name recognition...

But it seems like he was very much an illegal plant of some kind.  If the rumors of a third-party direct mail effort targeting black voters are true, then the above ballot theory wouldn't make sense (unless GOP operatives were trying to take advantage of the ballot scheme done by Dem operatives?).

[Lunar]

Can some Democratic donor hire this guy to be a doorguard or something, so he has a job besides being a giant FEC target?

[Lunar]

Can some Democratic donor hire this guy to be a doorguard or something, so he has a job besides being a giant FEC target?

I should add: I don't believe that's even illegal, if phrased correctly.  It can't be quid pro quo, but someone is able to say "Hey, the whole world is crashing down on you, I heard your story, you seem like an honorable man fallen on bad times and I don't believe the rumors about you, I need someone of your background to administrate my property, so you're free to call me up if you end up withdrawing from this busy Senate campaign you're about to wage, or afterwards should you end up not being successful."

Of all the "job offers" for the White House to give...

[Lunar]

cross-posted:

Al, I can't imagine this guy NOT being a plant.  As I alluded to either, South Carolina has really strict limits on public defenders.  This dude was charged with a felony a couple months ago, and anyone with $10k in a savings account would NOT BE ELIGIBLE FOR A PUBLIC DEFENDER IN SOUTH CAROLINA.   In other parts of the country, maybe.  The best case scenario for Greene is that he actually did have some "savings" from his time in the military, and that he intentionally hid said savings from the court in his request for a public defender.  But then, why would such a penny-pincher who lied to get a public defender, invest $10,000 in a campaign he would do nothing to engage in?

So, this guy, who a couple months ago proved to a court that he did not have $10k in the bank and qualified for a public defender, and who has been unemployed and living at his parent's house for nine months, suddenly has $10,400 to spend on a filing fee for a Senate primary in which he goes to zero events for, and does zero campaigning for?

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, shakes your hand [with its wing], and hands you a signed form telling you that it's a duck....?  

This isn't "possibly fishy" this is full red sirens blaring in a corruption prosecutors' eyes.

Whoever said the SC Dems qualified for an ineffective state party seem to be having their assertion proven over the last few days (unless any of the plant theories prove true--no, they're still a joke state party).

Some political shenanigans occurred in a race no one cared about, as the winner would have no chance...

are you aware of South Carolina's history?

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/governors/the-five-nastiest-south-caroli.html#more

Just saying.  Look at how NY GOP should be performing in the districts that they gerrymandered, holding 2 of 29 federal seats statewide, and zero statewide offices.


Just because some ineffective party fails at competing in a primary for a race they never really cared about, doesn't make them ineffective.  

[Lunar]

All of these interviews with Greene are just too painful to watch (most recent one: Olbermann). Yeesh...

Oh wow, I need to see that.

I'm 20 seconds in, and I'm already feeling pained.  It's like beyond Schadenfreude and more like pity.  I'm starting to feel bad for Greene.

http://www.therightscoop.com/disaster-keith-olbermann-interviews-alvin-greene

If this were a competitive seat, I'd feel less pity.  Maybe this is what Jm felt like watching Sarah Palin on Katie Couric, only a monosyllabic  version of Sarah though.

edit: it gets worse.  Olbermann sounds like a special-ed teacher.  This man needs to withdrawal now, to save himself.  


edit: yowzers.  I don't know how many more of these videos I can take.   It's worse than watching a car accident in slow motion.  He's clearly not able to conduct interviews in even the most remote of fashion.  

[Lunar]

Anyone else think he probably suffers from social anxiety of some sort? He doesn't really even know how to interact with people, it seems. Poor fellow.

Echoes my feeling.  I'm going to have to stop watching these interviews if he keeps doing them for the next six months.   

[Lunar]

Oh, obviously this was a rigged event.  It's just that everyone sees the baked potato and don't know if it was microwaved, baked, or something else.

Damn, am I hungry?  I think I am.

Also, is this guy the new Rand Paul?  keep this stuff in a thread guys.

[Lunar]

The Republican plant theory gains steam in Lunar's mind...



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/10/AR2010061004943.html


"The intrigue surrounding this week's Democratic primary contests in South Carolina intensified Friday as campaign finance reports linked Gregory A. Brown, the challenger who lost to House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn, to a Republican consulting firm."


Besides, the SC GOP is famously sneaky

[Lunar]

Is this all a function of uber low information primary day voters? I mean the suggestion that there was massive ballot tampering in SC just doesn't seem very believable.

Well, the primary probably even had even lower turnout because in SC, Democrats can request Republican primary ballots, and there was a lot of excitement in the GOP primary.  

I guess, despite my skepticism over the "Greene" name, "Alvin Greene" is quite more "black-sounding" than "Vic Rawl"

But there are still those rumors I heard about an independent direct-mail effort targeting voters on Greene's behalf.

And, I said this earlier, but I'll repeat it for you.  Greene qualified for a public defender when he was charged with his felony a few months ago.  Someone in South Carolina with $10,000 in the bank, would not be eligible for a public defender.  Greene has been unemployed since he was involuntarily discharged from the military nine months ago, and has had no source of revenue.  He showed up with a $10k check to register for the ballot.  Even if he had the money stored away in a separate account, that's still a huge amount of money to spend on a race you raise $0 for, and go to 0 campaign events for, and produce 0 campaign literature for.   

Put two and two together, and there's NO CHANCE that something sneaky didn't happen here.

The end.

[Lunar]

So a bunch of Republican like AHDuke voted for the guy?   I mean just because you are a GOP plant, does not mean you win a Dem nomination for a statewide office. But hey, if it works in SC, maybe it should be tried in my state.

No, no, my point was that the race was even more low-turnout because informed voters would want to vote in the GOP primary. 

[Lunar]

That's probably one of the largest contributing factors.

But, since he showed up with that $10k check to get on the ballot of money that was not his own, and another no-name African-American beat the SC Democratic Party's choice in a congressional race as well, all bets are off on what other kinds of shady things were done here.  

[Lunar]

The SC GOP planting candidates is much more believable, but alas, not illegal without more information than what we've got.  Amusing that Dem primary voters fell for it, but this is certainly not without precedent in either party in many states.

The $10,000 that Greene spent may have been illegal.  Obviously for a federal race, the maximum contribution is a notch about $2k.

Torie, I'm not saying they rigged the counting.  At worst, the shady things involved independent expenditures to target black voters.   Which may be illegal campaign expenditures, depending on the source of the money.

[Lunar]

I don't want to become a lawyer, I'd rather struggle for my money.

The SC GOP planting candidates is much more believable, but alas, not illegal without more information than what we've got.  Amusing that Dem primary voters fell for it, but this is certainly not without precedent in either party in many states.

The $10,000 that Greene spent may have been illegal.  Obviously for a federal race, the maximum contribution is a notch about $2k.

Torie, I'm not saying they rigged the counting.  At worst, the shady things involved independent expenditures to target black voters.   Which may be illegal campaign expenditures, depending on the source of the money.

Well for a mere $10,000, someone got a lot of bang for their buck, per voter and otherwise. I am not sure there is any there, there. It may be, that nobody cared, sort of like voting for party committee person. I never know who the heck they are, or care. So, the guy was the first name on the ballot, and that was that. Or maybe, it was just racial fealty, if the other dude was white.

Aye, the other dude was not only white, but his name was "Vic Rawl" as I said above.

Obviously $10k is childsplay in politics.  

But to summarize:

Greene's ballot money: Almost certainly illegal, and 100% not his own

Greene's GOTV operation: If it existed, possibly illegal, and 100% on behalf of the GOP.  All I heard are rumors, the SC Dems better be scouring those counties looking for literature drops and that sort of thing.  I'm sure we'll find out soon enough whether those rumors of direct mail pieces turn out to be true, I'm 50/50 on them myself.

Honestly, interfering in the other side's primary is done all the time.  Hell, I may have done it.  But there is a big difference between legal and illegal.    

[Lunar]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Seek help.

Haha.  Just a joke.  I'm not a fan of the struggle.  If someone told me the winning lottery numbers I'd do that and retire. 

[Lunar]

But show me the federal statute that says said action is illegal.  What are the elements?  What is the standard of proof?  What are the parties who can be implicated in such actions and what are the circumstances that catches them within the meaning of the statute?  Build me a case, because otherwise accusations of illegality are baseless.

I'm not an expert on campaign finance law, and Citizens United may have changed this, but my understanding is that Independent Expenditure efforts need to properly file as an IE organizations and follow federal rules when they play in federal races.  Look at Harry Reid's group, the one that ran anti-Lowden ads, as an example of this,.

I'm not going to build you a legal case here, as I'm not qualified to do so, all I can do is use my experience and background to make conjectures, which I freely do as we know.  I've built a fairly solid [non-lawyer] case that Greene either lied to the courts when he proved he qualified for a public defender a couple months ago, or that his filing to get ballot access was funded by an illegal campaign contribution -- as for such a filing to be legal, it would need five separate $2,300 contributions for the "Al Greene for Senate" organization to legally possess the $10,400 he spent for ballot access.  As he insists that the $10,400 which he spent was entirely his own money, and all the evidence says that he could not have possessed that money legitimately, and his own actions of not campaigning after spending that sum, there's a fairly strong case of something illegal going on here.  

And, it should be said, there's still a serious possibility that a Democratic operative could be behind this.  As I said earlier, you don't appear on the ballot unless you have an opponent, so for any challenger, there's a serious incentive to have a challenger to build name recognition.  

[Lunar]

This whole situation is beyond bizarre. Even if this guy is a Republican plant (which I would not be surprised to learn is true), all it really means is that DeMint will win by 35 points now instead of 25 points. Is he that paranoid about winning re-election that he would orchestrate something like this?

I really doubt that DeMint himself is behind this, obviously for him to orchestrate picking his opponent (Like Reid did, but legally through an IE effort) is far more risky than it's worth not orchestrating that, and DeMint is a fairly smart guy, politically.

As similar cases to Greene's happened in some Congressional races, it was probably just a generic SC GOP operative screwing things around.  Why?  It's election year, there's money available, and somebody thought they'd play around with it.  

I mean...why do you think DeMint has $4 million buckaroos in the bank?  Because thousands of donors though that they would make a difference in a competitive race?  No, political operatives act like political operatives no matter where they are, and if there's no reason to screw around with things, they will do so anyway, especially the South Carolina GOP, probably the shadiest political organization this side of North Korea.

[Lunar]

Also, Sam, the moment that there's enough publicly available information that something illegal happened, Clyburn's friends are going to launch a lawsuit.  So sit tight.  Obviously there's not such information yet, or if there is, someone more informed than myself will need to connect the dots.

All I can do is connect half he dots and see that the shape looks like a rotting fish. 

[Lunar]

And, it should be said, there's still a serious possibility that a Democratic operative could be behind this.  As I said earlier, you don't appear on the ballot unless you have an opponent, so for any challenger, there's a serious incentive to have a challenger to build name recognition.  

Additional thought: If this turns out to be the case, operatives need to make sure that their plant is on board with the party for Plan B, the freak case where their no-name plant for primary politics, ends up winning.

You'd think a felony case of distributing pornographic materials becoming national news would be enough of an incentive, but whatever bribe this guy took to appear on the ballot, if it did indeed come from Dems, didn't come with the "P.S. Oh yeah, if you win, please drop out" clause at the bottom.  

It should be said though, at least Alvin Greene is being more honest about his military record than Mark Kirk -- as Greene has publicly said from the start that his honorable discharge was involuntary. 

[Lunar]

Px, have you read my comments in this thread at all?

He qualified for a public defender a few months ago, and to do that you have to basically prove in court that you don't have 10k in the bank, and he's been unemployed since.  And on top of that, he spent no time actually campaigning despite that massive investment

[Lunar]

Well, this is an issue because there seems to be SOMETHING shady going on, and while DeMint will be reelected, I think it deserves sorting out.