Political Dynamite

Without question the most amusing political story to emerge in the last year or so is the election of Alvin Greene as the Democratic candidate for Senate in South Carolina's primary last Tuesday.

Mr. Greene is a 32-year-old, unemployed, recently and involuntarily discharged military veteran who lives with his 80-some-odd-year-old father. He has neither campaign website nor yard sign nor cell phone nor Twitter account, and he didn't hold any rallies, but he IS currently out on bail for a felony charge involving pornography and stalking a "co-ed" (that's Old People talk for female undergraduate)and following her all the way into her dorm.

He also clearly does not have all of his mental faculties quite in order, as is made clear in this interview, very similar to others given on MSNBC and Fox News:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYtnrvn9xd4

Pundits and Democratic heavy hitters alike have been scrambling to find an explanation for this strangest of strange occurrences. One plausible theory to emerge is that he is a Republican plant, someone who the Republicans got to run so that they could vote for him (South Carolina has open primaries; you don't need to be registered with a certain party to participate in that certain party's primaries) and then the Republican challenger would be a shoe-in. This would be fitting with the history of dirty politics in South Carolina, and (after all) a similar feat was accomplished by the Republicans in 1990. Also, this would explain where on earth Mr. Greene got the $10,400 needed to run in the Democratic primary. He says the money is his own, but one wonders where an unemployed 32-year-old can get that kind of money from. (Heck, I'm an employed 32-year-old and I don't have that kind of money sitting around).

One problem with this theory is that the Republican challenger, Sen. Jim DeMint, is popular and well-liked and was seen as being in no danger at all of losing his seat, so one wonders why Republicans would resort to these shenanigans if their man could easily get elected without them.

Another theory, mentioned in the New York Times, is that Alvin Greene is clearly the name of an African-American, and that voters in South Carolina (many of whom, especially in the Democratic primary, are African-American) therefore voted for him, thus encouraging the rise of the first African-American senator from South Carolina since Reconstruction. The problem I have with this theory is that it could be seen to imply that black people are stupid.

Yet another theory holds that Alvin Greene's name simply appeared first on the ballot, above the name of his much better known and better financed opponent, and that Democrats simply voted for the first name they saw. Apparently, people do this, especially very partisan voters.

Whatever happened exactly (and I'm sure we'll find out soon), what's clear is that we have witnessed a fundamental breakdown in the democratic process in this country. Whether Mr. Greene is where he is because of manipulative and revolting Republican shenanigans or because Democrats voted for someone without knowing who he really is, what is clear is that the combination of ignorance and apathy is absolute poison to the democratic process. This is exactly what happens when citizens cease to be engaged in their own civic welfare. The importance of active and informed voting has never been clearer.

So while I say that this whole episode has been amusing, the truth is, it is more alarming than anything. Almost equally alarming has been the coverage of this story in the biased networks. Fox News actually spun this story as anti-incumbent fever and as an example of ruthless, kingmaking top Democrats trying to circumvent the voice of the people by insisting on crowning their own candidates (the party's top dogs have called for Mr. Greene to step aside in favor of the better-known Democratic challenger). MSNBC tried to spin this as clearly another manifestation of Republican ruthlessness in South Carolina. Again, active and informed citizenship is necessary in order to see through the filters that these networks provide.