Alvin Greene: Proof South Carolina Democrats are screwed

South Carolina Democratic Party chair Carol Fowler should have the following to-do list today:

1) Apologize to statewide Democrats
2) Resign as chair of South Carolina Democratic party
3) Call up Jim DeMint and accept his heartfelt thanks for giving him a walk in this year’s Senate race
4) Apply for job at McDonald’s, the only place outside of SC Democratic politics where complete inattention to the job at hand is rewarded with a management role

It’s generally accepted here that Senator DeMint will remain one of South Carolina’s Senators up until the point he is caught with a dead girl or live boy. He will never ascend to Presidency, primarily because no one with a “De-Capital Letter” prefix will win a national Republican primary due to GOP fear it might signal a national security weakness or potential homosexuality. He won’t lose a primary here, because…well Strom Thurmond and Fritz Hollings are proof that South Carolina voters will re-elect as long as their man still appears to be breathing. DeMint will never lose an general election in South Carolina. Why? Because Democrats like Carol Fowler run the state party.

Evidence:

That’s Alvin Greene, Sen. DeMint’s opponent in the November general election. That’s Alvin Greene, one-time Army soldier (with a questionable discharge record), unemployed, self-funded candidate for the United States Senate. That’s Alvin Greene, the man who somehow won the state Democratic primary last night without a website, campaign war chest, or much of a campaign staff. That’s Alvin Greene who was recently charged with felony obscenity distribution. Yep, that’s Alvin Greene’s mughsot, a picture of Senator DeMint’s opponent, and a picture of South Carolina Democrat’s inability to do anything right.

That Greene got nominated isn’t directly Fowler’s fault. State party chairs routinely remain neutral during primaries. Fowler shouldn’t be expected to campaign for Greene’s opponent. That’s just not how things work.

That understood, it is Fowler’s fault that neither she nor the party was able to put up a candidate who had been groomed and vetted enough to beat a no-name, potential felon with zero public service experience (outside of his questionable Army service, of course). The party is so poorly organized and defeatist that it was happy to put up a barely-known state legislator to lose to DeMint. In the meantime, they let a 32-year-old guy who still lives in his childhood home win a primary for a office in Washington D.C.

There is blame to go around. Greene actively admitted that he did no campaigning. The media didn’t bother to check him out. So, one can assume the voters didn’t either. What does that say for the vote itself? It is believed here that the voters made their choice…wait for it…alphabetically. Greene’s name came before opponent Vic Rawl’s on the ballot, and hence he got the votes. It’s like a car detailing service naming itself “AAA Auto Detailing” so it will be first in the phonebook, except in this case, the number you end up dialing is to Jim DeMint’s victory party HQ.

While we can blame everybody–the party, the media, and the voters–ultimately the blame falls on Fowler. It is her job to engage the Democratic constituency of a very red state and mobilize them to vote viable candidates into office. Further, it’s Fowler and the party’s job to groom candidates to later run for higher office. Who do the Dems have groomed to run against DeMint? This year it’s a state legislator nobody has heard of and a guy who could end up doing one to five for allegedly flashing porn to a University of South Carolina student and then trying to get her into a dorm room. Well played, Carol. Nobody was expecting those guys.

Even better, Fowler had the arrogance today to ask Greene to step down…for the good of the party. Here’s an idea, Ms. Fowler. You step down for the good of the party, because your voters are more likely to elect a Mr. AssFace than Mrs. BuyYouDrinks.

This is why South Carolina Democrats are screwed. They are up against one of the toughest, meanest, most vituperative Republican party machine in the entire country. They are up against years of tradition. They are up against a voting constituency that routinely votes in men who use the word “raghead” in polite conversation. They have the toughest job of almost any state party in the country, and they can’t put up a candidate who can win against a guy who can’t afford campaign signs.

On most days like this, we would be celebrating the victory of the common man. We would be championing a black candidate who could win a statewide race in South Carolina. We would be cheering the fact that the anti-establishment candidate with no campaign funds managed to win all but four counties in the state. Instead, South Carolina is once again the butt of nationwide jokes. Normally it’s the GOP’s ignorance that draws the spots on The Daily Show. Now, Democrats get their turn.

And you know what? They deserve it. They deserve it for letting this happen. They deserve it for maintaining a fatalistic, depressed, we’re-not-gonna-win anyway attitude toward national races. They deserve it because they they are too shortsighted to groom candidates for higher office. They deserve it, because they let themselves be the party the Republicans want them to be. To get all up in arms now because a potential felon won their election is a sign of complete arrogance on the part of he Democrats. It’s not that they have a better candidate who was mistakenly left off the ballot. The state party simply doesn’t have a candidate worthy of the ballot in the first place.

I’m sure Ms. Fowler (wife of the one-time national Democratic Party chair Don Fowler) is a very nice lady. I’m sure she learned a lot while watching her husband at the helm of the national party. I’m sure she has some unique ideas on how to solve problems. For all of these reasons, I’m sure she will make a fine manager of the Columbia, SC McDonald’s.

And yes, I want fries with that, Carol.

Update: Ms. Fowler…here’s your candidate: