Alvin Greene has a right to run for the US Senate. Lots of people have the right to do all sorts of things. But he should quit the race, and he should do so for the good of the Democratic Party. I have felt this way since the night he won the election, but couldn't quite explain why. Now I can.
Watch this:
Most Americans can't name a Supreme Court Justice, nor five Senators, and we'll skip the state capitals. All they know is what they get from TV ads, and the local news. That's it. Alvin Greene is, for many Americans, the Senate candidate they know. If you showed them a card with a bunch of head shot photographs of any 10 US Senators, there's a chance they'd get Al Franken if they remember SNL, but likely wouldn't know he was a Senator. Any nine others would provoke blank stares.
But the sound of a man wailing in his house, afraid to come out and talk to a reporter? That's something that people will remember. And not in a positive way. If I worked for the dead tree press, my headline would be "The Cowering Candidate." This is NOT the image I want for the most prominent candidate of my party.
If you think I'm joking about what people know, consider this. People who read DCW tend to know more about the races and the candidates and the issues than most people. They also tend to read other blogs, and keep up with the polling numbers. So, offhand, do you know how many open Senate races there are this year? There are 13, and they are CT, DE, FL, IL, IN, KS, KY, MO, ND, NH, OH, PA, and UT. How many of the candidates can you name? The incumbents are from the following states: Democrats - AR, CA, CO, HI, MD, NV, NY (two), OR, VT, WA and WI. Republicans - AK, AL, AZ, GA, ID, LA, NC, OK, SC, and SD. Could you name all of them and their challengers?
Those are rhetorical questions. I assume you can name all the incumbents, all of the major party challengers, and even most of the third party candidates. Do you think most people could? What about Alvin Greene? Do you think they've heard of him? And that's why he should drop out of the race today. Because the face and sound of our most prominent candidate should not be some guy with no experience currently under a felony indictment. The obscenity charge may well be specious, but the obscenity of him staying in the race is not.
In NC-Sen, Secretary of State Elaine Marshall is in a run-off against former state Sen. Cal Cunningham. Marshall came in first in the original primary, and is considered a favorite to get the nomination.
In the SC-Gov, GOP run-off, state Rep. Nikki Haley should win easily.
And in UT-Sen (R), former Utah County GOP chair Tim Bridgewater is running against Mike Lee to see who can be the wingiest and nuttiest. 'Cause current Senator Bob Bennett was neither wingy or nutty enough for Utah Republicans.
We'll have results here later.
8:00: Haley and Marshall both ahead in early results. 8:15: Over 20% in, Haley and Marshall both over 60%. Only question is which race gets called first. 8:25: Haley wins. 8:30: Marshall wins. Utah polls close at 10 Eastern. 11:20: Slow counting in Utah. Lee is up 52-48 with 18% in. We'll have final results in the morning. 7:30 AM: Lee won 51-49.
South Carolina has ruled: Alvin Greene gets to stay on the ballot. There is an attempt to get Linda Ketner to run as an independent. She's a Democrat who ran (and almost won) for the House in 2008. Some of her former staffers have launched a petition drive. She hasn't committed one way or another, but if she runs, she can self-fund.
Everyone is saying that Jim DeMint is a shoe-in in November: I guess his name being first on the ballot cements it for South Carolinians. But I'm thinking about something else: what if it happens again and Alvin Greene ends up as the junior Senator from South Carolina? I do not accept that he won because people just voted for the first name on the list. Nor that there is an "e" on the end of his name. I don't buy it because in general people who don't care enough to find out who's running don't bother voting in off-year primaries.
Here's my hypothetical: some teenager with the skill set of Kevin Mitnick, an interest in politics, and a desire to do something that would look great on his college applications if he can avoid jail decided to see if he could rig a statewide election. He chose South Carolina because their voting machines were easy to connect to the internet, easy to override on the cassettes that go into each machine, and then all he had to do was sit back and watch. So now, he sits back, waits, and does it again in November. And Senator Alvin Greene goes to DC in January.
Let's talk about some logistics. Where does he live? DC is an expensive city, so he's probably going to have to share quarters. He won't end up at C Street with the good rent because, well, he's African-American, and those guys only let blacks in the building to clean and cook. Will he bring an Aerobed and live in his office?
He'll need staffers: while it would seem that no career-oriented political type would want that job, it would be an opportunity for the right person to become Alvin's Chief of Staff and actually BE a shadow Senator.
How will he fare at orientation? In the Senate, each party has their orientation programs in either November or December, and they coincide with the leadership elections. There are sessions on parliamentary procedure, and Senate rules, and overall "life in the Senate". What if, like campaigning and various promised interviews and yesterday's hearing, Alvin just plum decided not to show?
What about constituent services? DeMint has offices in Charleston, Columbia and Greenville, and Graham has offices in Columbia, Florence, Greenville, Mt. Pleasant, Pendleton and Rock Hill. Will Alvin have offices in the state? Will he be able to have a staff that provides constituent services?
There's no rule that says Senators must make speeches on the Senate floor. No requirement that they vote. He actually wouldn't have to show up. At all. Ever. Except to get sworn in. So maybe he shows up for orientation, checks out the DC museums and nightlife, goes home to spend Christmas with his dad, comes back to check out his new office and take the oath, and then goes home. He'll be hard to reach since he doesn't have a cell phone: no tests to him, no email on an iPhone or Crackberry...people will just have to wait until he makes his daily run to the public library to check his email. He would never have to go back to DC.
There's good and bad to this. The bad is that it would be mortifyingly embarrassing to have a Senator who would be so incredibly unqualified. Yeah, yeah, he makes the Constitutional minimum but I expect that Senators can speak publicly, know issues, read at a 12th grade level, carry on a conversation using complete sentences, things like that. Alvin Greene will never write a piece of legislation, nor even contribute to one. I don't say this out of cruelty: the guy is limited. It's no crime. I'm sure he's a nice guy, but he is in over his head.
The good is that the count of senators effectually lowers to 99, and that lost vote is a Republican vote.
I know what you're thinking: this can't happen. And perhaps it won't happen, but it certainly could.
“South Carolinians would rather be 100% right than 90% uncertain.”
As we stated yesterday, our campaign began examining election data on early Wednesday morning. Over the course of the next 24 hours, our staff found several results that seemed unusual to us. We stress that, then and now, we very much hope that Tuesday’s primary was conducted fairly and that nothing untoward happened.
Expert Data Analysis
No one on our staff is a statistics expert or mathematician. As the unusual information began to accumulate, several unconnected people and teams who are far more expert in election forensics than our staff contacted the campaign and volunteered to look at results from Tuesday’s primary.
One of the teams was Dr. Walter Mebane of the University of Michigan and Dr. Michael Miller of Cornell University. Dr. Mebane is a professor of political science and statistics and a recognized expert in detecting election fraud. As of August 2010, Dr. Miller will be professor of political science at the University of Illinois, Springfield, and specializes in the analysis of election data. Neither is affiliated with the Rawl campaign.
Dr. Mebane performed second-digit Benford's law tests on the precinct returns from the Senate race. The test compares the second digit of actual precinct vote totals to a known numeric distribution of data that results from election returns collected under normal conditions. If votes are added or subtracted from a candidate’s total, possibly due to error or fraud, Mebane’s test will detect a deviation from this distribution.
Results from Mebane’s test showed that Rawl’s Election Day vote totals depart from the expected distribution at 90% confidence. In other words, the observed vote pattern for Rawl could be expected to occur only about 10% of the time by chance. “The results may reflect corrupted vote counts, but they may also reflect the way turnout in the election covaried with the geographic distribution of the candidates' support,” Mebane said.
Dr. Miller performed additional tests to determine whether there was a significant difference in the percentage of absentee and Election Day votes that each candidate received. The result in the Senate election is highly statistically significant: Rawl performs 11 percentage points better among absentee voters than he does among Election Day voters. “This difference is a clear contrast to the other races. Statistically speaking, the only other Democratic candidate who performed differently among the two voter groups was Robert Ford, who did better on Election Day than among absentees in the gubernatorial primary,” Miller said.
These findings concern the campaign, and should concern all of South Carolina. We do not know that anything was done by anyone to tamper with Tuesday’s election, or whether there may have been innocuous machine malfunctions, and we are promoting no theories about either possibility.
However, we do feel that further investigation is warranted.
Voting Machine Examination
With that in mind, another expert volunteer traveled today to the SC State Board of Elections in Columbia to conduct an examination of selected voting machines that were employed in Tuesday’s election. When we have the results, if any, of that examination, we will release them immediately.
Gathering of Anecdotal Accounts
While we believe, and urge others to note that “the plural of anecdote is not data,” our campaign is receiving calls and e-mails from people – voters and poll workers – who experienced significant problems with voting for whom they intended. We are looking into these reports and will release any information we find.
Judge Rawl and the campaign stress again that no one knows exactly what happened on Election Day. South Carolinians would rather be 100% right than 90% uncertain.
The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) began an investigation on Friday afternoon into the election. Likely it will center on the statistical anomolies details in the Rawl press release.
People keep asking why would someone bother to knock Vic Rawl out of the race? An internal poll for the Raw campaign showed a DeMint-Rawl match-up at 50%-43%, which is pretty good considering Rawl is a virtual unknown outside of political circle. (Or was, it's likely he's much better known in South Carolina now.) Even according to PPP, DeMint wasn't a shoe-in against Rawl.
What chance does Greene have? Well, it's now a sure thing for DeMint if Greene stays the challenger. He's going to have a lot of trouble proving where that $10,000 filing fee came from. He SAVED it over 2 years? That would mean that he saved about $100/week consistently for two years. The max you can make in South Carolina on unemployment is $326/week. Seems tough. There will be bank records: when he filed, he used a personal check, there are records of deposits. There is an issue of him never filing with the FEC. Plus that pesky morals charge. Amazingly, a sex conviction won't keep you out of Congress, but it's a no-no for any South Carolina state elected office. Plus, he's created a lot of bad blood amoungst the Democrats: it will be hard for him to garner any logistics or financial help. Greene's candidacy made sure that DeMint would win re-election: he is at best a spoiler.
I have always contended that US Senator is not an entry-level position, and I still hold to that. There are rare, exceptional people, who have spent their lives related to politics in some way, but they are the exception. I'm thinking of Al Franken, with his polisci degree from Harvard, and a life dedicated to a lot of political comedy, which actually DOES require understanding politics. Not some young man who just "feels like it".
Court records show 32-year-old Alvin Greene was arrested in November and charged with showing obscene Internet photos to a University of South Carolina student. The felony charge carries up to five years in prison.
Greene said he had no comment when asked about the charge Wednesday and hung up on a reporter.
The unemployed veteran posted bond after his arrest. He has yet to enter a plea or be indicted.
In addition, rumour has it that there might be some irregularities about the vote count that have yet to come to light. Will keep you posted.
Here is another case of spending money to help elect another Democrat who will not advance the Democratic Party's agenda, on any front that i can see.
I know we have had discussions about sitting senators and congressmen, but here is a case where the Party is looking at this guy as "our best hope"
What is the point of giving this guy a dime? i understand some bluedogs are worthless on some issues and stand with the party on others, making it a "hold your nose and vote" situation, but this guy seems to be a sleeper cell GOP to me.
Democrat Chad McGowan is hoping to unseat Republican Jim DeMint next year.
(CNN) – The Democrat who wants to be South Carolina's next United States Senator might not see eye to eye with President Obama if he's elected next November.
In fact, Chad McGowan - a Rock Hill trial attorney who national Democrats see as their best hope to unseat conservative Republican Jim DeMint - appears to oppose the bulk of the White House's economic agenda, including the stimulus package and "a government takeover of healthcare."
McGowan's campaign outlined those stands Tuesday in a statement disputing the DeMint team's claim, made Monday, that McGowan supports Democratic health care reform legislation in Washington.
"DeMint's folks get their facts from the same place they've gotten their imaginary economic figures," McGowan spokesman Tyler Jones said in an e-mail to CNN. "The accusation that Chad McGowan has endorsed President Obama's health care plan is blatantly false. And Chad is on the record opposing the stimulus, opposing the bailouts, and opposing a government takeover of healthcare.
"This is the second time in as many months DeMint and his folks have outright fabricated Chad's positions," Jones continued. "Those games may work in Washington, but they won't work here in South Carolina. Instead of making up positions, Chad will continue to present real ideas to fix our economy, create jobs and help South Carolina's hard working middle class families."
That McGowan might not march in lockstep with other Democrats in Washington isn't exactly a surprise: He told CNN in October that he was once registered as a Republican and voted for Lindsey Graham in last year's Senate election. McGowan also called himself "a gun person."
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford faces ethics charges he broke state laws more than three dozen times by violating rules on airplane travel and campaign money, according to details of the allegations released Monday.
It's up to the state attorney general to decide whether to file criminal charges. Sanford's lawyers have claimed the allegations involve minor and technical aspects of the law.
It's about time.
My only question is, given the way both South Carolina and the IIE works, is THIS enough to get him impeached?
My coffeemaker is on the fritz. This is neither news, nor likely of much interest to you. However, since I had to go out yesterday (and today) to buy my coffee, I picked up a copy of theUSA Today. Here are the tidbits from yesterday, I'll have today's tidbits tomorrow since I don't read the paper until the evening.
First, a South Carolina update. We told you back in December the state legislature wanted license plates to be able to sold with a cross and "I BELIEVE" on them. (Link and image of plate here.) Judge Cameron Currie, who had slapped an injunction on the state last year to preclude the plate sales, has now ruled that the license plates violate the separation of church and state, and cannot be sold.
Next up, if you live in Kent, CT, Bill O'Reilly is coming your way. A town resident who lost a son at the Twin Towers went to a local Selectwoman about putting up a plaque, inscribed with words including "Muslim terrorists." The Selectwoman, and the rest of the board, felt that would be inflammatory and rejected the request. O'Reilly is planning on marching on Kent.
If you don't live in Kent, do you live in any of the following towns?
Grand Rapids, MI*
Fort Wayne, IN
Noblesville, IN*
Cincinnati, OH*
Columbus, OH*
Washington, PA
Rochester, NY*
Roanoake, VA
Fort Bragg, NC*
Birmingham, AL*
Jacksonville, FL
The Villages, FL
Orlando, FL*
Springfield, MO
Fayetteville, AR
Plano, TX
Sioux City, IA
Sioux Falls, SD*
Bloomington, MN*
Albuquerque, NM*
First thing: the asterisks indicate cities in counties won by President Obama last year. All the cities comprise the current list of Spunky's book tour. You'd think she'd play to the base...but it looks like she's headed to blue country, too.
And finally, today's money fact. I hadn't known this. While we often look at lobbyist money in terms of how much is spent by individual industry, I'd never looked at which single entity spent the most on lobbying. Turns out it is the Chamber of Commerce, which has spnet $65.2 million so far this year, and $527.5 million from 1998-2009. This dwarfs everyone else. For example, this year, the 3 next largest lobbyists were ExxonMobil ($20.8 million), Pharmaceutical Research of America ($20.2 million) and General Electric ($19.7 million). Over the prior 10 years, the runners up were the American Medical Association ($212.6 million) General Electric ($191.3million) and AARP ($169.8 million).
House Speaker Bobby Harrell on Tuesday turned aside an impeachment resolution brought by another Republican. He says lawmakers can only deal with a limited number of items in their abbreviated session this week. They came back to Columbia specifically to deal with unemployment benefits.
Harrell said state Rep. Greg Delleney can file the resolution next month in advance of the regular legislative session starting in January.
But there's a new sex scandal in South Carolina. Meet Roland Corning, age 65. Former State Legislator. Really recently former Deputy Assistant Attorney General. Soon to be formerly married. And of course, a proud IIE member. No, he's not dead, but the cemetery is integral to the story.
On Monday, Roland went to lunch with a friend. They chose to "have lunch" at the cemetery pictured at left. In a secluded spot. Which is where the police spotted them.
As the officer approached, Mr Corning sped off, then pulled over a few blocks away. He and the 18-year-old woman with him, an employee of the Platinum Plus Gentleman's Club, gave conflicting stories about what they were doing in the cemetery, Officer Michael Wines wrote in his report, though he did not elaborate.
Mr Corning gave Officer Wines a badge showing he worked for the state Attorney-General's Office.[...]
He then searched the SUV, where he found a Viagra pill and several sex toys, items Mr Corning said he always kept with him, "just in case", according to the report.
W-e-l-l-l-l-l- the officer decided to check on his employment. And his identity. Who did he call? Mrs. Corning, who also happens to be an employee of the state Attorney General's office. She verified his identity, and then marched into her boss' office, and by the end of the day, Roland was unemployed.
There haven't been a lot of nice things to say about South Carolina lately. But yesterday, the State Supreme Court struck a blow against the insurance industry.
An insurance company's "reprehensible" decision to rescind a South Carolina man's coverage after he tested positive for HIV warrants a $10 million punitive damage award, the state Supreme Court ruled. [...]
The trial court ruled in Mitchell's favor, awarding him $186,000 in actual damages and $15 million in punitive damages.
The state high court upheld the awards, but reduced the punitive damage award to $10 million based on the ratio of the projected $1 million cost of Mitchell's treatment.
"We find ample support in the record that Fortis' conduct was reprehensible ... Fortis demonstrated an indifference to Mitchell's life and a reckless disregard to his health and safety," Justice Toal wrote.
I've read about $2 million dollar rescission decisions in California, but this appears to be the largest single financial hit an insurer took on one case. There have been sealed judgments for multiple claimants in both California and Connecticut that are rumoured to be higher, but those data are not available.
As we wait with bated breath for Congress to act (properly), hold to this thought: wouldn't it be nice if every insurance company had to write a check for $10 million dollars for every person to whom they denied legitimate care, with or without direct rescission? Not only would it be morally and ethically pleasing, but just imagine what it would do to pump up the consumer portion of the economy.
It seems to be the year of the boycott. First Glenn Beck's advertisers, and now this:
State and local tourism officials are being flooded by emails and calls from people across the country, saying they won't vacation in South Carolina because they're upset by GOP Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst at President Barack Obama.
So yes, give some money to Rob Miller (over a million from all sources, and rising) but also drop an email to South Carolina and let them know how you really feel. Let them know that you'll never swim, golf, eat, play in their state.
If you want to really have some fun, you can allude back to their previous state tourism promotions. Below are two tourism campaigns run by the state. Both were designed by advertising agencies. One was used for a long time. The other was banned within days of it's launch. See if you can guess which is which.
He's broke, his challenger has raised over $350,000, and it turns out he was one of only 7 in SC legislature to vote to keep the confederate flag flying AND he's a member of the sons of confederate veterans!!!!
We're going to get that seat as well as Cao's seat.
I wrote back:
I disagree. I think its unlikely we pick up his seat. From what I read earlier today his district is very red. His voters likely agree with his comments about Obama.
Well, score this one DocJess: 1, Matt: 0 :
In a matter of seconds Wednesday night Joe Wilson went from being pretty safe for reelection to one of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents in the country.
Wilson trails Democratic challenger Rob Miller 44-43 in a PPP survey conducted Thursday night and Friday morning. Last year Wilson defeated Miller 54-46.
62% of voters in SC-2 disapprove of Wilson's actions while just 29% think they were ok. By a 48-41 margin Republicans think what he did was fine, but independents are opposed to it by a 66/25 margin and Democrats are 84/10. ... It will be interesting to see if there is a push now for Wilson to not seek reelection. In a Republican climate there's no reason this seat should be competitive next year, but as long as Wilson is the GOP candidate it will be. If he stepped aside it would probably go back to being safe Republican. -PPP
Don't you wish election day in SC was today and not 14 months away?
Update: Rob Miller has raised almost $800,000 since Wilson's tirade. You can see the numbers and donate at ActBlue.
Things just got more difficult for SC Gov. Mark Sanford:
South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer urged the state’s governor, Mark Sanford, to step down at a Wednesday news conference, saying Mr. Sanford’s “serious misconduct” had made it “virtually impossible for our state to solve the critical problems we’re facing without a change in leadership.”
Mr. Bauer, who would be promoted to governor if Mr. Sanford did resign, also repeated an offer he had floated earlier this summer: that, if the governor stepped down, he would only serve out the remainder of Mr. Sanford’s term and not seek reelection in 2010. -NY Times
Bauer said that if Sanford does not resign, he should impeached and removed from office by the end of the year.
But there's a new sex scandal in South Carolina. Meet Roland Corning, age 65. Former State Legislator. Really recently former Deputy Assistant Attorney General. Soon to be formerly married. And of course, a proud IIE member. No, he's not dead, but the cemetery is integral to the story.
