"The Manning-churian Candidate" (Alvin Greene)

[Clio the Leo]

The Manning-churian Candidate

Story by Corey Hutchins
Photos by Sean Rayford

On the Wednesday morning following the June 8 primary elections, the South Carolina Democratic Party was in a state of apoplectic shock. It had made national news again for all the wrong reasons.

State party executive director Jay Parmley looked like he’d bitten down on a joy buzzer as he sat in the chair of his office, scrolling up and down the precinct reports on his computer monitor shaking his head, cursing under his breath, wondering why, why, why; how, how, how?

In the race for United States Senate, political unknown Alvin M. Greene had walloped challenger Vic Rawl.

Around the state, Democratic activists were facing the smacking electoral truth that a non-campaigning, unemployed, black, country-living, coo-coo-for-Cocoa-Puffs nobody who’d been kicked out of the Army and was currently facing federal sex charges had just beaten — in the Democratic primary, and by 17 percentage points — a well-known former legislator, judge and current Charleston County councilman who’d raised a quarter of a million bucks for the race and for months been campaigning his ass off.

The news wasn’t sinking in as much as it was settling like a depth charge.

Greene Who?

On March 16, Greene had walked into the Democratic party headquarters in Columbia and tried to give them a personal check for the $10,400 filing fee to run for U.S. Senate. Democratic Party Chairwoman Carol Folwer told him he needed to start a campaign account; several hours later he returned with a campaign check. He asked that his name, address and picture be immediately put on the party website, showing he’d filed.

Then his candidacy went dark. Greene never filed with the Secretary of the Senate, according to its Washington, D.C. office. He didn’t file with the Federal Elections Commission, which the FEC requires by law.

When the state Democratic Party held its convention in April, Greene didn’t even show up.

He won anyway, taking in over 100,000 votes and beating the vigorously campaigning Vic Rawl, 58 to 42 percent. He won in all but four counties.

By mid-morning June 9, following his unexpected win, Fowler was hemmed in her office by a camera crew from ABC — unfortunately not WOLO-TV, the local affiliate, she said — who were asking her point blank if she thought Greene was a Republican plant set up in the primary to bump Rawl off the ballot for November.

Who knew what to believe at that point?

Fowler didn’t recall giving a quote that had been attributed to her saying she believed, maybe, that voters just chose Greene’s name because it appeared above Rawl’s on the ballot alphabetically.

“I don’t believe that,” she said later. She looked at Parmley and the two shook their heads in tandem. What on earth had happened?

By noon, in Charleston, a Rawl supporter was screaming on the phone that all the voting machines in the state should be locked up and a forensic investigator called in to find out what in the world had gone so terribly wrong.

A Lowcountry attorney who had campaigned heavily for Rawl, William Hamilton was convinced something nefarious was up. He’d always had his suspicions about Greene’s candidacy, but never expected he’d pull off an actual win in the primary. Espcially by such numbers. Hamilton’s son voted for the first time in his life Tuesday – apparently for nothing. There had been good people, good Democrats, working their tails off to get Rawl elected. They made phone calls, they made ads, they drove all over the state.

“What else could we do?” he asked.

Hamilton was afraid of a national narrative that might start to congeal by the end of the day: That the South Carolina Democratic Party was indeed just completely and royally f#!ked. Look who they’d just nominated. Somebody queue The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and start looking for the highest bridge from which to jump.

Conspiracy Theories vs. Electoral Reality

The question everyone had, of course, was “How could it have happened?”

So far, three major possibilities have emerged:

(click below to read them)
http://www.free-times.com/index.php?cat=1992209084141467&act=post&pid=11861006100935349