"Take Me to the River"....
...and hold my head under the water while I ponder the final nail in the coffin of the concept of an intelligent American electorate:
Even in Manning, a town of 4,000 where everybody knows everybody, nobody seems to know Alvin Greene. "He just all of a sudden shows up and — boom!" said L. G. Mathis, 61, the owner of L. G.'s Cut and Style, a barber shop downtown.
It is another embarrassment for South Carolina, said Carl F. Jackson Jr, a graphic designer at a local newspaper, The Clarendon Citizen. "Anybody who got beyond eighth grade is a little astounded by this," Mr. Jackson said, adding his own theory of how Mr. Greene had won. "Maybe voters thought it was the singer, Al Green."
This theory has been repeated in a number of articles,. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? South Carolina Democrats, not familiar with two candidates for the United States Senate, decided to cast their vote for a guy because they thought he was...an iconic soul singer who -- after a string of some of the greatest records of all-time -- hasn't had a hit since the mid-1970s. A guy who, by the way, hails from Memphis, Tennessee, hundreds of miles outside the Palmetto State.
Good thing to know that American electorate won't simply throw its vote away. Actually, this theory is so crazy I'm not even sure if I believe it. I do believe that voter indifference ("VI," if you're scoring) of some sort caused Greene to win. But where did an unemployed and basically homeless man get the money to even run? That is the $10,000 question.
Meanwhile, I'm thinking about recruiting a candidate to run for Senate as a Democratic in 2012. I'm looking in particular for people by the names of James Browne, Harvin Gay, Mike Jaxson, Aretha Frank-Lynn, or Gladys Night. Please contact me ASAP if you know these people.