Sepka wrote:I think the most believable theory is that someone has a grudge against Vic Rawl, and financed a halfwit with a shady background but a solid, respectable-sounding name to run against him, knowing that Greene would benefit from the top ballot position as well. Once the election was over, Greene could be outed to the media, embarrassing Rawl not only by the fact that a substantial percentage had voted for Greene rather than Rawl, but also calling the legitimacy of Rawl's victory into question by showing that many of the voters had no real idea even who the candidates were.
Sometimes, of course, you get lucky. Instead of embarrassing Rawl, they've pretty well destroyed him.
In the short term, I suppose.
In the long term, though, he's now got the kind of statewide name recognition as "Vic Rawl. Legitimate Candidate" that money actually can buy, but only if you have quite a bit of money. Which he now doesn't have either to raise or spend, having received it as a gift from out of the pure blue.
Anyway. I doubt he's feeling all that destroyed.
lupercal wrote:"Rawl was only seven points behind DeMint in a recent InsideAdvantage/StatehouseReport poll." (from "The Manning-churian Candidate: Unknown Alvin Greene Wins Senate Primary," by Corey Hutchins, Columbia Free Times, June 10th, 2010, http://www.free-times.com/index.php?cat ... 6100935349 )
Honey, did you happen to find any way of getting to the poll itself? Because I can't find a trace of it anywhere. There was an S.C. Index report summarizing a poll that they did, per which Rawl was only seven points behind DeMint.
But the S.C. Index is a bimonthly newsletter that's the joint endeavor of three Democratic consulting, research and marketing firms. And all they offer up is that per a poll they did in May of 438 likely voters, 50% were for DeMint vs. 43% for Rawl, with a +/- margin of error of 4.6%.
IOW -- they don't say what questions they asked in what order. And there's quite a bit of action going on in SC, especially in the Gubernatorial race. So that would matter. In addition to which, they were probably working for some Dem entity when they did the survey, and possibly working for the Rawl campaign itself. I'm too lazy to check. But my point:
That's not an InsiderAdvantage poll, Nor can I find an InsiderAdvantage poll on the SC senatorial primary that says anything at all. It doesn't look like they did one. Or else I can't find it. One or the other.
Finally, the random prank theory is hard to swallow once you realize dirty tricks are SOP in SC, and interfering with federal elections is a serious crime, even if inadequately prosecuted.
p.s. oops, didn't see C2W's latest, can't wait!
Please allow me to clarify:
I don't think it was a random prank either.
I just don't think it was conventionally electoral, insofar as DeMint doesn't appear to have needed the assist.
Therefore, I vaguely think/guess/suspect that perhaps it was the work of professional political operatives (who were not necessarily doing that work at the behest of Republican party leadership) the point of which was simply to do something that was really racist (from their POV) with impunity, in order to show that they could and for kicks.
Because it has a kind of nasty personal feel to me. But as I already more or less said, I wouldn't put more than a purely nominal sum on that scenario to win, place or show. It's just a feeling. That's all.