Democrats in South Carolina recently chose Alvin Greene to take on Jim DeMint this November for a US Senate seat. Greene, who is unemployed and currently faces felony obscenity charges, never seriously campaigned for the office. The legitimacy of his win has been challenged by notable Democrats from SC Congressman Jim Clyburn to Obama advisor David Axelrod. State Representative Todd Rutherford even questioned his intellectual fitness for the post. Others have played the “hanging chad” card, suggesting that the vote was somehow manipulated and otherwise did not reflect the real intentions of the voters.<\/p>\n
Much has been said of this debacle, but few seem to be asking what I believe is the most important question: What does Greene’s victory say about the intellectual fitness of South Carolina Democrats?<\/p>\n
I’ve heard some interesting theories. Some have suggested that voters might have selected Greene because his name was the first on the ballot. Others have argued that Greene\u2014an African-American\u2014might have enjoyed support from a large African-American voter base in a primary where many voters did not know much about Greene or his opponent, Vic Rawl. Someone even noted that the name “Alvin Greene” contains an unusually high proportion of vowels, although I haven’t figured out how this could have influenced the results.<\/p>\n
Regardless of the explanation you find most appealing, we must come to terms with one key fact: The majority of Democrats in South Carolina were perfectly willing to select a candidate on the basis of one or more factors other than his fitness for the position. If a case could be made for mass voter ignorance, this is it.<\/p>\n
I hope Greene stays in the race. As Al Gore once reminded us, every vote must be counted and respected. South Carolina Democrats have made their choice. May the best man win in November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Democrats in South Carolina recently chose Alvin Greene to take on Jim DeMint this November for a US Senate seat. Greene, who is unemployed and currently faces felony obscenity charges, never seriously campaigned for the office. The legitimacy of his win has been challenged by notable Democrats from SC Congressman Jim Clyburn to Obama advisor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}