Clyburn: Alvin Greene is 'someone's plant' in South Carolina

Updated 2:55 p.m.

By Garance Franke-Ruta

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) articulated the suspicion of many South Carolina Democrats this morning by suggesting that the state's Democratic U.S. Senate primary victor Alvin Greene was a "plant."

Greene, who is unemployed and lives with his mother, was the come-from-nowhere winner Tuesday after earlier paying $10,400 to register as a candidate and then seemingly disappearing from view. On Wednesday, the state's Democratic leaders called on him to drop out of the race after it was revealed he has a felony obscenity charge pending against him for having allegedly shown a University of South Carolina undergraduate Internet porn and made "statements of going to the victim's room," according to the arrest warrant.

(Read a copy of Greene's arrest warrant here.)

Greene won the contest with 59 percent of the vote and is now the first African American major-party U.S. Senate nominee in South Carolina since Reconstruction. He defeated Charleston attorney Vic Rawl, a former judge who had served four terms in the state legislature.

Clyburn also said the U.S. attorney's office in South Carolina should investigate Greene's win, The Hill reported based on Clyburn's remarks on "The Bill Press Show."

"I think there's some federal laws being violated in this race, but I think some shenanigans are going on in South Carolina," Clyburn told Press. "Somebody gave him that $10,000 and he who took it should be investigated, and he who gave it should be investigated."

(See a copy of the handwritten "Alvin M. Greene for Senate" check here.)

"I would hope the U.S. attorney down there would look at this," Clyburn said.

"There were some real shenanigans going on in the South Carolina primary," Clyburn said. "I don't know if he was a Republican plant; he was someone's plant."

The Columbia Free Times notes that the state's baroque political culture has given rise to fake candidates in the past:

Republican place markers in Palmetto State Democratic primaries are campaign legend.

In the early '90s, a Republican strategist was prosecuted and forced to pay a fine when he was found to have coaxed an unemployed black fisherman into running in a primary race to increase white turnout at the polls in a Lowcountry congressional race. The political operative paid the man's filing fee.

Greene has denied being a plant, the Free Times reported.

Speculation about how Greene managed to pull off his victory has swirled, but there is still no clear answer. The Charleston Post and Courier reports:

State Rep. Bakari Sellers, D-Denmark, suggested Greene might have benefited from being listed first on Tuesday's ballot, but Fowler said the party's two relatively little-known Senate candidates in 2008 polled at nearly 50-50.

State Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, who lost his gubernatorial bid Tuesday, said race could have played a role. The Democratic primary electorate is majority black, as is Greene, but not Rawl. "Vic Rawl had money, but he didn't have enough. He wasn't able to identify himself with black voters," Ford said. "No white folks have an 'e' on the end of Green. The blacks after they left the plantation couldn't spell, and they threw an 'e' on the end."....

Rawl's campaign manager, Walter Ludwig, said something more than racial politics was at work. "It wasn't just a lot of people deciding to vote for black folks, or Robert Ford would be on the ballot (in the November governor's race)," he said.