The Al Greene thing in South Carolina just keeps getting better. Ace of Spades poster Comrade Arthur wrote,

This guy is growing on me! He’s not smooth or polished (and he might be a sex offender) but listen to his answers. They’re clumsy but honest. The reporter said two local lawmakers said he was a moron and Al said “name them”. The reporter didn’t and Al said “name them” again! Finally the reporter did and Al said “they’re the morons!” (all quotes paraphrased).

(if it wasn’t for the sex offender charge) this is a regular guy!

I’m leaning more and more towards the likelihood that Greene gets north of 30% come November if he’s still on the ballot.

BTW, head over to Ace of Spades HQ. They have some of the smartest commenters this side of the Valu-Rite.

“Vic” writes that while it doesn’t make sense for Greene to be a Republican plant, there’s an outside possibility he could be a Democrat plant:

A Democrat boss was looking for a way to get past November Voter Anger. He simply made a bet: find a guy who is very malleable, spend $10,500 to get his name on the ballot, then do nothing but drink beer until the primary is over.

My theory is that it was a plant and a dirty trick by the Dems. They knew they had virtually no chance to beat DeMint. The were pushing Vic Rawls from Charleston and figured everyone would go right along with that.

So they give this guy the money to file and tell him to run. The idea being that after Rawls won the actual campaign would get underway. In late Oct they would drag this guy out and accuse the Republicans of trying to throw the election and violations of campaign finance rules. Hopefully this would be enough to temporarily throw a wrench in DeMint’s capaign.

The scheme back-fired and the nobody won.

It’s just as weird of a theory, but at least this provides a motive, which is more than the Republican conspiracy theories do.

The best comment comes from smapty:

I think DeMitt¹ should drop out just to give the Democrats chronic heartburn.

Now that’s some outside-the-box thinking!

Dave in Texas also embeds the Don Lemon interview with Greene, and I’m too lazy to steal it from him.

Personally, I’m leaning towards a simpler explanation, though I’ve unfortunately forgotten where I read it and can’t find it. (I think it was in the comments on some blog, if you know, send it over.) The Republican gubernatorial election was the hot race. South Carolina has an open primary; everyone who paid any attention to the election was voting in the Republican primary, because that’s where the action was. So the only people left to vote in the Democratic primary were people who weren’t paying any attention. They just voted for the person who came first on the list or who had the more palatable name. Vic Rawl lost on both counts.

One question everyone’s asking is, where did he get the money? It may be that he’s telling the truth: it’s his army money. He’s sitting there on the dole with a public defender and his final army check comes through. For whatever reason, he decides he needs to get rid of it quickly. He’s got a degree in political science—why not run for office?

That degree, though, is another question. If the slowness he’s demonstrating is for real, and Wikipedia is right that he has a degree, how? I know educational standards have dropped, and political science probably isn’t the most rigorous of majors, but you can’t “no comment” your way through college without something or someone to make up for it. You have to write something at some point. What did his essays and term papers look like?

(I also agree with Ace that paper ballots are better than e-ballots.)