Senate race bizarre beyond belief

Have you heard the story of Alvin Greene?

If you haven’t, this one is a doozy. And not surprisingly, it comes from the South, South Carolina in fact.

In the Democratic Primary, there were two candidates running for the nomination in the Senate race against longtime GOP incumbent Jim DeMint.

One of the candidates, Vic Rawl, was a former judge who served four terms in the state legislature. He spent $180,000 on his campaign, attended party functions, you know, campaigned.

His opponent was a 32-year-old unemployed man who was living with his parents, the aforementioned Alvin Greene. Greene was jobless after being discharged from the Army, he claims honorably, while adding it wasn’t voluntary. He was forced to resign.

His campaign raised by all accounts about $200. He didn’t attend any functions. He didn’t place a single lawn sign, hand out a single flyer, mail any material, or start any web sites.

When asked what he did in his campaign, he can’t name a single thing.

But somehow, this unemployed, living-with-his-parents, out-of-touch South Carolinian won.

By a lot in fact, as he received nearly 60 percent of the vote. And if that isn’t weird enough, did I mention he’s been charged with a felony. He’s awaiting trial for allegedly showing pornography to a University of South Carolina student and asking to go back to her dorm room.

As more people get answer to the Who question, the question that remains is How?

Or should I say, questions.

First off, how does a guy with no job and no home raise the $10,500 filing fee to run for Senate. It’s against federal law for someone else to pay the fee, which some people are alleging. Appare-ntly, part of the political game is to plant a “stooge” candidate to run against a party’s lead horse in order to create some dissent in the party. It has reportedly happened before in South Carolina, especially in the Democratic Party races, but never has the alleged stooge done as well as Greene.

To that end, House Majority Whip James Clyburn, a leading South Carolina Democrat, is calling for a state and federal investigation into the possibility Greene was planted by the GOP.

Regardless of if that’s true or not, what was going through the minds of South Carolinians when they voted for this guy, en masse? His opponent had no major political skeletons, and well, no one had ever heard of Alvin Greene, because as he admits, he did nothing to get his name out.

There are varied theories into why he won, all equally scary: a popular one is people voted for Greene because his name came first on the ballot, another was because he’s black and his opponent white, another because Greene is a popular last name in South Carolina.

I’ve watched several interviews with Greene since he won. They make the situation more bizarre. His responses to simple questions lack thought, rational, and anything remotely related to common sense.

This is certainly a campaign worth watching. And if he gets elected. Oh boy, that will be fun.