.
There was no big conspiracy to put up one of the worst possible candidates as the Democratic candidate in South Carolina. It is the unintended consequence of the internet and free media access to all..
Access tends to cluster around things people want to read. With people rarely paying for content (say like newspaper subscriptions) - people view what is hot in the moment. And a Democratic State Primary Race in South Carolina is not really important. Jim DeMint is going to win, and probably would win no matter who the Democrats put up. No free content follows this race. And since newspapers and local news have fewer and fewer resources, they don't investigate everything. So you have someone with a better name - not bigger - just more appealing - win a primary. No cheating, just the unintended consequences of a voracious, but headless, media.
.
(from Washington Post)
.
I feel for Vic Rawl. The Democratic former South Carolina state representative and former Circuit Court judge is eminently qualified to represent the people of the Palmetto State. And, yet, 59 percent of Democratic primary voters chose Alvin Greene. He's the unemployed guy who somehow paid the $10,440 filing fee, who has been discharged from two branches of the military, and who faces felony obscenity charges. Greene's interviews, particularly those with The Post, Keith Olbermann and Time magazine fueled speculation that he is a Republican plant. But as we learned yesterday Greene is the beneficiary of electoral ennui and an alphabetically advantageous name.
.
.
Stripping Greene of the Democratic nomination because he's probably the worst candidate ever to grace a ballot would have been an abuse of power. It would have reversed the will of the people. And if the people want to make dumb mistakes, well, they're just going to have to live with the consequences -- and perhaps another six years of DeMint.