Candidate of the week, Up North edition

So you think South Carolina has all the political weirdness (Alvin ... Alvin ... ALVIN!)? Or maybe California?

Check out ol' Jimmy McMillan, running for Governor of New York.

Too bad Al (Grandpa) Lewis from The Munsters isn't still around. He'd liven up the campaign.

###

Greene's Air Force records should carry no real surprises

H'mmm ... According to his service records:

" ... an overall inability to clearly express his thoughts and perform basic tasks ..."

Y'all probably noticed this first deficiency in his occasional interviews; I don't think I need to say more here. He demonstrates this every time he opens his mouth.

This is according to the Post & Courier:

Greene's Air Force records damaging + documents:

Requires Flash enabled device. For other devices, obtain the PDF version of the records here.

Surprise U.S. Senate nominee Alvin Greene frequently mentions his 13 years of military service, but records obtained Thursday by The Associated Press show the veteran who has called himself an 'American hero' was considered a lackluster service member at best.

The records, which document his superiors' decisions to pass over Greene for promotion, cite mistakes as severe as improperly uploading sensitive intelligence information to a military server, and as basic as an overall inability to clearly express his thoughts and perform basic tasks.

Greene, 32, won a surprise victory in the June 8 Democratic primary. Greene handily defeated Vic Rawl, a former lawmaker and judge who had been expected to easily win by the party establishment."

Gonna be a fun campaign, yes?

###

Greene's first speech shows slippery grasp of facts

South Carolina's action figure hero/Senatorial candidate Alvin Greene made his first speech over the weekend, on his home turf and in front of a relatively friendly crowd.

To his credit, he didn't screw the pooch in his not-quite-seven-minute speech to the NAACP in Manning, but let's just say he doesn't have a firm grasp of issues.

Surprised?

Greene's statements don't always match reality:
COLUMBIA -- In his first campaign speech over the weekend, U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene pledged to get South Carolina back to work and decried the state's bottom-of-the-barrel employment and public education rankings.

Let's just say he's fuzzy about a lot of things, OK? A lot of the stuff he's saying is so garbled that you can't even run it through the Bravo Sierra translator without it breaking.

A couple of samples:

GREENE: There are more people unemployed in South Carolina than ever before.

Wrong. Now it's at 11 percent, or 238,000 people. Which sucks, but it doesn't suck as bad as it did in January -- 273,000 unemployed, at 12 percent. The rates have steadily improved since then.

GREENE: South Carolina spends twice as much per inmate as it does per public school student.

Right idea, wrong figure. The state does spend more per inmate ($16,300) than per student ($11,372). That's not double. But then, Greene himself is a fine product of our South Carolina edjumication system, and has the degree (from the University of South Carolina) to prove it.

So where was he getting the data for his speech?

GREENE: "Research, multiple sources, everything, news. All of the above."

And this guy swears he is a serious candidate. He actually has the nomination from a major party.

But he didn't say anything about how a line of Alvin Greene action figures would benefit the state. And he didn't say anything about Denzel Washington portraying him in a movie. Not this time anyway.

I guess South Carolina is safe.

###

Alvin Greene becomes fodder for Riverdogs promotion

U.S. Senate nominee Alvin Greene suggested raising money with an Alvin Greene action figure, and now it looks like he's gonna get it.

The Charleston Riverdogs, the local minor-league baseball team owned by Mike Veeck and Bill Murray, is making use of this. Greene will be immortalized in an action figure to be given away this weekend. Well, kinda sorta.

It turns out the action figure will be about something else, and his face will be available to put onto the toy. It seems that some weird artist wanted to create a male Statue of Liberty (don't even ask) statue to go up in Charleston Harbor, and that was laughed out of existence. However, the Riverdogs put together a mini "Mr. Liberty" statue as a ballpark promotion.

From what I get, you can then take your Mr. Liberty to an "economic stimulus" station set up in the stadium concourse, where they'll slap an Alvin Greene face on Mr. Liberty.

Greene, the unknown untested unvetted candidate who somehow got the Democratic nomination for Senate from South Carolina, blurted the action-figure idea out as one of his ideas to raise revenue:

"Little dolls. Me. Like maybe little action dolls. Me in an Army uniform, Air Force uniform and me in my suit."

And that was in one of his more lucid moments.

I love it.

Here's the story, from the Post and Courier:

Mr. Liberty, Alvin Greene, part of RiverDogs action figure promotion: "
CHARLESTON - The RiverDogs are going green: Alvin Greene that is."

Gotta hand it to the Riverdogs management. They know how to promote. Or wouldn't you say that about any team that deliberately set a sports record for lowest attendance (zero, as part of Nobody Night where the team played the first five innings in a locked-down stadium). Some years ago they planned Vasectomy Night for Father's Day some years ago, and this was considered so over the top that the promotion was ... say it with me ... aborted.

And Greene? He says he doesn't mind the promotion. "As long as it looks good and is in good nature, I'm OK."

The Riverdogs are not done with Greene either. They're planning another promotion down the pike, "Greene Family Reunion" T-shirts similar to the one the candidate was wearing the day after his primary win.

For those who are in the area, the Mr. Lady Liberty/Alvin Greene giveaway is Saturday, July 17.

###

An Alvin Greene action figure?

It just gets stranger and stranger around here, folks. Deeper and deeper.

Alvin Greene isn't just a South Carolina joke, but a national one.

Hang that, he's gone worldwide.

He told The Guardian (out of London) that making action figures of himself might help South Carolina's economy. No kidding!

As the Guardian so glibly pointed out, if the idea actually worked, it still wouldn't help the American economy. But it might help China's.

Just read the story for yourself:

Alvin Greene wants a Toy Story | Richard Adams: "

Guardian interview with Senate candidate Alvin Greene reveals his economic policy: making Alvin Greene action dolls

My colleague Ed Pilkington makes the trip to South Carolina to interview the now famous Alvin Greene about his bizarre US Senate candidacy and Democratic primary election victory. Ed does unearth this gem from Greene's fertile brain:

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.'

Except that those sorts of things – plastic childrens' toys – are all made in China these days.

The whole piece is worth reading, with a serious point, made when Ed gets a response from Greene's father:

And the suggestion that he is mentally ill? 'That's an insult!' The answer is barked out, with distinct anger. But it doesn't come from Alvin. It comes from James Sr, who is shuffling past in his slippers just as we reach this point.

I turn to him and ask why he thinks such insults, as he sees them, are being levelled at his son. 'Back in my day black people who registered to vote were turned away. They called the doctor and treated them as crazy.'

The net result of Greene's eyebrow-raising election, though, is to hand the Republicans a very easy win in South Carolina. Jim DeMint, the sitting senator, was always going to win but Greene's candidacy means DeMint's free to raise money for, and campaign in, more competitive races elsewhere – the South Carolina gubernatorial contest for starters, the Kentucky Senate race, the Florida Senate race... take your pick.

Uhh, does he have himself confused with the Governator of California, or what?

At least Arnold Schwarzennegger has this action-toy business figured out.

Greene, not so much. Not unless you figure out a way to market a completely misplaced, unqualified moonbat first.

Oh, I forgot, that's worked in a recent presidential election, too. 

###