New Job Program: An Alvin Greene in Every Stocking

From the UK’s Guardian:

It is clear, too, in the course of the two hours I spend with Greene that he has some pretty wacky ideas that, were he to win in November, would put him among the more unpredictable members of the senate. At one point, he lurches off on his big idea for how to create jobs in South Carolina.

“Another thing we can do for jobs is make toys of me, especially for the holidays. Little dolls. Me. Like maybe little action dolls. Me in an army uniform, air force uniform, and me in my suit. They can make toys of me and my vehicle, especially for the holidays and Christmas for the kids. That’s something that would create jobs. So you see I think out of the box like that. It’s not something a typical person would bring up. That’s something that could happen, that makes sense. It’s not a joke.”

Similar statements made by Greene in the days since his victory have allowed the media, most recently on the Huffington Post yesterday, to present him in precisely that way – as a joke. Pundits have scrambled to explain how he pulled off his win. The voting machines must have been faulty; his name came before Rawl’s on the ballot; the spelling of Greene is a black spelling that drew African-American voters; voters confused him with the singer Al Green.

The tone of some of the comments has bordered on cruel. The Democratic party elite tried to force him to stand down as duly elected nominee, but backed off when they realised they had no power to do so. Two Democratic politicians from the South Carolina assembly – both African-Americans – went to see him and tried to talk him out of his candidacy, and when he politely refused they suggested he was mentally impaired.

I ask him how the welter of conjecture and insinuation has affected him. He won the election handsomely, yet nobody seems able to accept it. “I just have to tune those things out. It’s like people are in their own imaginary world and they want to hear what they want to hear.”

Were the voting machines faulty? Is that why he won? “Nope. I got 60% of the vote, and 60% of the vote is decisive. That’s more than Obama won this state with in the primary in his presidential bid. He got 55% of the vote. This is not a mistake. That’s not a fluke.”

Read the whole thing here.