Way back in 2010, the morning after the South Carolina primaries, we awoke to a puzzling state of affairs. Chosen to run against Jim DeMint was someone no one had ever heard of. We Democrats had been so certain that our guy would win the primary that all we could say was, “What?” and “Who?”
For the remainder of the election year, Alvin Greene became a source of national entertainment and state party angst. Alvin's qualifications were beyond questionable. He not only had about as much understanding of issues as Sarah Palin, his stated beliefs were suspiciously right-wing and nasty legal problems kept cropping up. The state Democratic Party couldn't even begin to explain how this had happened.
And neither could anyone else. A Republican plant? Voting machine irregularities? Our own Jim Clyburn accused the Republicans of dirty tricks. The only lame excuse we could come up with in the end was the likelihood that, not knowing either candidate, voters chose the one that came first in the alphabet.
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And these days, bringing up the name Alvin Greene gets much the same reaction from Democrats as whispering “Nancy Pelosi” will get you from a Republican.
What we do know about the Democratic Primary in South Carolina in 2010 is that not enough people knew enough about the candidates, and even fewer voted.
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Tomorrow, Tuesday, the South Carolina Primary is rolling around again. Let us learn a lesson from the Alvin Greene fiasco. It only takes a very few people to turn the tide. Your vote counts. So google South Carolina Primary 2014 and find out the names of some of the candidates, and then google them and spend a minute getting a sense of what they have to say on the issues. If you have a preference in any given race, be sure to vote that preference. If there is only one race in which you have a preferred candidate get out and vote for that one candidate – it really is that important!
And when you are voting, if you don't know any of the candidates for a given office, for goodness' sake, don't choose one.
Thank you, Alvin Greene.