Many Questions, Few Answers From Alvin Greene

(June 14) -- With every interview he does, the mystery of would-be U.S. senator Alvin Greene gets deeper and stranger.

A week ago, virtually nobody had heard of the unemployed veteran with no political experience, no money and no campaign organization. Now he's generating as much buzz as those blasted vuvuzela horns at the World Cup matches. Ever since his shocking victory over former state lawmaker Vic Rawl in Tuesday's South Carolina Democratic primary, reporter after reporter has tried -- with little success -- to pry information out of Greene.

To say Greene is a man of few words is a colossal understatement. His halting, monotone manner of speaking throws off interviewers who are accustomed to candidates who won't shut up.

Asked about the felony obscenity charge against him for allegedly showing Internet porn to a college student, he would only repeat "no comment" until recently switching to "my lawyers are handling that" -- "which in politics is not exactly an improvement," observed Hot Air's Ed Morrissey.

Asked how someone with no job and no campaign contributions could afford the $10,400 fee to get on the ballot, his only response is that it's "Army, Army, Army, Army money" -- saved up during his time in the military. (Speaking of money, Greene asked one Washington Post reporter, "Can I get paid for this interview?")

In one awkward 10-minute Q-and-A on ETV last week, he couldn't explain how he managed to get 60 percent of the vote. He credited his victory to "hard work" and old-fashioned campaigning but couldn't give a single example of what he meant by that. Greene said he's more qualified than GOP incumbent Sen. Jim DeMint, because "I am a 13-year military veteran, and my opponent has no military experience."

Greene claims he was an intelligence specialist in the Air Force, then joined the Army as a supply specialist -- and that he was involuntarily discharged last year. Why? "Things just weren't working ... it was hard to say" is his only explanation.

Over the weekend, an interview on CNN deteriorated so badly that anchorman Don Lemon expressed concern about the candidate's mental health. Lemon asked Greene about claims by a couple of lawmakers that he might have "mental impairments."

"I say that back to them then," Greene said, laughing and adding, "they're the knuckleheads."

Then, as Mediaite's Glynnis MacNicol described it, the phone interview took on the feel of a "hostage negotiation."

Lemon: Are you OK right now?
Greene: I'm fine.
Lemon: You're fine. And you're mentally sound? Physically sound? You're not impaired by anything at this moment?
Greene: No. (long pause.) I'm OK. I'm OK.

Democratic leaders think he's far from OK and are demanding an investigation. Some suspect Greene was a "plant" -- intended to guarantee DeMint's re-election. Republicans have denied it, but House Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina told CNN on Sunday that he detected "elephant dung all over the place."

Others don't buy the theory of a GOP conspiracy. They suspect Greene got the most votes simply because his was the first name on the ballot.

"It's unclear which of these groups has less faith in democracy," wrote Gawker's Adrian Chen, one of many bloggers for whom Greene has become comedy gold.

Pajamas Media's Jazz Shaw laughed off the first-name-on-the-ballot explanation.

"... we on the inside know better. Greene's team is being handled by a savant who is playing three-dimensional chess while the rest of us flounder in a moribund game of Old Maid," Shaw said. "And what of his opponent in the general election, Senator Jim DeMint? His prospects are almost laughable by comparison. Thus far he has bitterly clung to the abandoned paradigms of last-century thinking: raising funds, providing constituent services, meeting with voters and talking to prospective supporters."

"Alvin Greene has broken down the last barrier, a barrier some refer to as 'being somewhat qualified to hold office,'" Alexandra Petri declared in The Washington Post.

"If this 32 year-old man without a cell phone or computer, who has never held any political office, has no job and is 'on the not-guilty side' of a felony charge, can become the Democratic nominee for Senate from South Carolina, then literally anyone can. That means me, or you, or that guy on the street corner who talks to cats," Petri wrote in a PostPartisan column. "Alvin Greene has given us all permission to dream of holding national office."

The mysterious Mr. Greene's curious primary victory has become a facepalm moment for the Palmetto State's Democratic establishment.

"We have embarrassment fatigue here," former South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian admitted to The New York Times. "If there is an embarrassment equivalent of post-traumatic stress disorder, South Carolina has it."