“All politics is local”, is a quote I often heard from my grandfather. He also said, “Local politics make for local enemies” when he would decline endorsing one candidate over another that he knew personally. Those words seem so wise when I read about “local politics” from around the country making national news daily. Local races in other places should also make one examine voting trends in their neck of the woods more closely.
In South Carolina, elections are becoming material for The Daily Show with John Stewart and talk show comedians nightly. Democrats were handed another loss when an unknown Democrat won the South Carolina's Democratic Party nomination for the U.S. Senate two weeks ago. Alvin M. Greene, an unknown veteran, is being demonized by for his win against a well known city councilman, four time state legislator and former judge, Vic Rawl. Greene is being charged with everything from being a plant by the Republicans to a soul singer impersonator. His finances and qualifications are being challenged now that he has won.
That is the background for comedy writers. If you read the above paragraph without comedy humor or political correctness it would read; Al Greene, an unemployed black man who seems slow to media correspondents, beat Vic Rawls, a seasoned white politician that everyone thought should have won. Greene did not campaign, had no website, or campaign fliers, we are told. That is the story in a nut shell. Instead of expressing the story in simple terms, we are being given every scenario under the sun that could be the reason for Greene’s win. The voting machines, that were allegedly bought used from Louisiana, are being examined as one of the possible culprits for the unprecedented number of votes recieved for an unknown candidate. Even the White House who backed Arlen Specter, a Republican who switched parties to run as a Democrat because he thought he had a better chance of winning, weighed in on a race that the DNC did not contribute funding too or send any operatives to stump for Vic Rawl who most pundits thought would win the Democratic nomination. The Republicans are not without egg on their face either. They have been handed a number of defeats that were considered shoo-ins on this road to mid-term elections for November.
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