"I don't believe he's a plant," Sellers told TPMmuckraker in an interview after his meeting with Greene. "I think he just kind of doesn't know what he's getting into."posted by warbaby at 4:54 PM on June 10, 2010
And the first rock we turned over we've found that the allegedly sham candidate running against Clyburn was paying a consultant tied to uber-winger Rep. Joe "You Lie" Wilson (R). And the one guy who gave him money also contributed to McCain. So since this guy was running in a Democratic primary, I'd say that pretty good prima facie evidence that Clyburn was on to something, at least about that guy.posted by saulgoodman at 7:06 AM on June 11, 2010
As the small crowd of family and friends dispersed an elderly neighbor beckoned for a reporter to come back behind his truck. He was shaking his head.
“He ain’t wrapped tight,” the man said gesturing toward Greene’s house. He said he hadn’t voted for Greene and couldn’t believe what had happened.
“I ain’t know how the hell he got all them damn votes, though,” he said. “He got a pile of damn votes.”
The man looked back at Greene’s house with a twisted smile on his face. “I don’t understand that,” he said. “All them damn votes he had.”
The man paused and shook his head slowly as the dying sunlight filtered through the trees.
“Something ain’t right,” he said.
Obviously, it's still very possible that horrible things will emerge about Greene, and make me look like an idiot for writing this. (In fact, he already is accused of fairly horrible things -- though not convicted.) In the meantime, though, it's satisfying to see something as lower-case-democratic as a random black guy winning for no clear reason. We may not be able to interpret votes for Greene as any affirmative popular endorsement of whatever his candidacy stands for. But we sure can read it as a rejection of the dull, hackish cynicism of the Democratic Party and its expectation that South Carolinians will vote for some un-embarrassing non-entity. And if nothing else, that's kind of fun.posted by warbaby at 10:10 AM on June 11, 2010
Two African American Democratic legislators from Clyburn's district insist Brown was in no way shape or form a plant. State Rep. Wendell Gilliard is listed on Brown's FEC report as a "consultant," and was paid $4,000 by the campaign. He told TPM it is "ludicrous," to suggest Brown is a plant. "Brown is out here like any American citizen ... Clyburn is just a politician that doesn't want anyone to run against him," Gilliard said.Just because some people keep hollering "plant" doesn't seem to have any solid fact to back it up. Still waiting for somebody to do the shovel work and spend the shoe leather.
Gilliard declined to say what the campaign payment was for -- and he said he never met Grisham, nor knew about his involvement in the Brown campaign -- but he insisted that Brown's campaign was completely on the level. State Sen. Robert Ford, who lost his bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination on Tuesday night, told TPM that Brown had come to him two years ago to first discuss running against Clyburn.
In another interview, he hangs up when asked about how he quailfied as indigent soon before producing a $10,400 filing fee.(It also notes he has yet to be able to name a single specific place he went when he did all the "old fashioned campaigning" he's vaguely claimed he did.)
South Carolina has a history of political plants being placed in elections to skew turnout. In 1992, Republican operative Rod Shealy was convicted of hiring an African-American fisherman to run for congressional office in hopes of stimulating white turnout to help his sister get elected lieutenant governor. The case of Greene, who is African American, has reminded many here of the Shealy incident, though political sleuths have not come up with any logical meddler or motive.Wow. So the SC Republicans have actually done something like this before. I hope there is a thorough investigation because more and more this is starting to smell.
Why is South Carolina running its e-voting election night return results through Europe?Apparently, there have been questions raised before about a similar technical issue during the 2004 elections.
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://www.enr-scvotes.org
And why has South Carolina registered that domain through GoDaddy?
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posted by ND¢ at 7:52 AM on June 9, 2010