Is S.C. nation's 'whoopee cushion'? Jonathan Martin July 26, 2010 04:33 AM EDT

A month and a half after Greene’s out-of-nowhere victory in the South Carolina Democratic Senate primary, the media obsession with his unlikely story is becoming as big a mystery as the circumstances surrounding his curious candidacy.

A week ago, CNN sent one of its top correspondents to the Democrat’s small hometown for Greene’s debut speech, and ABC’s “World News Tonight” did an entire segment that day on the 32-year-old military-veteran-turned-unemployed-Senate-candidate.

These reports follow scores of national, and even international, stories about nearly every aspect of Greene’s life: Who he is, how he got on the ballot and why he won the June primary.

There’s no other marginal candidate this election cycle drawing such attention. And there may be no other example in modern political history of a statewide political hopeful with so little hope of victory, yet so much media attention.

It’s virtually certain that, by November, Greene will be the subject of more national coverage than most of those candidates who will actually be elected to the Senate. What’s most curious is that it’s not as though his surprise primary victory dashed or advanced Democratic hopes to pick up a seat — GOP Sen. Jim DeMint is virtually certain to win reelection regardless of who is put up against him.

But while Greene’s long-shot campaign may not offer insights into the broader political environment, the breathless coverage of his candidacy reveals much about how the news media operate in the Obama era and how otherwise obscure stories and individuals can attract and hold their attention.
From the outset, the alchemy of the Greene story has proved irresistible to the national press. At its core is a mysterious, quotable protagonist in a whodunit featuring alleged dirty tricks, against the backdrop of race and region — the equivalent of catnip for reporters.

“You’ve got a lot of volatile chemicals at play here,” said Scott Huffmon, a political science professor at South Carolina’s Winthrop University.

What’s truly remarkable about the Greene story is that the fascination has endured even after a state law enforcement investigation concluded there was no wrongdoing — that Greene paid the $10,400 candidate filing fee out of his own pocket.

As reported in The State newspaper, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division obtained Greene’s bank records and determined that he had cobbled together the money through a payment he received from the Department of Defense for his military service and from federal and state tax refunds. 

So, despite accusations from some Democrats, such as House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, Greene is apparently not a GOP plant meant to ensure DeMint’s reelection. 

With the facts surrounding his candidacy more mundane than first thought, why is Greene still drawing attention?

First, there is the obvious: Greene’s authenticity in an era of talking-point-bound politicians is arresting. Quirky, long-shot candidates are a commonplace election presence across the map; but in this case, Greene has shown a knack for drawing attention. An example is his suggestion to a British newspaper that he could raise revenue for the state by selling bobble-head dolls with his likeness.

“He keeps saying provocative things,” said Republican strategist Tucker Eskew, a South Carolina native. “That’s, on the most basic level, noteworthy.”

And in an era in which cynicism permeates politics, the discovery of an utterly guileless politician whose motives and goals are genuinely unclear fuels even more coverage.

But the lingering fixation on Greene reaches beyond that.

The South Carolina dateline plays a significant role, because, dating back to the Lee Atwater era, the Palmetto State holds a place in the American psyche as a uniquely nasty political universe in which the worst sort of dirty tricks are practiced by the most sinister of operatives.

Even after the conspiracy theory of Greene’s primary victory was knocked down, interest in the bizarre tale has continued, in part because of the state’s better-than-fiction political culture.

“It feeds the narrative about how South Carolina has been a carnival act for the last year and a half,” said Democratic operative Wyeth Ruthven, a veteran of state politics, referring to recent events involving Republicans, including Gov. Mark Sanford’s intercontinental affair, Rep. Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” outburst and recent accusations of infidelity against gubernatorial nominee Nikki Haley. “Had this happened in any other state, it wouldn’t have gotten the same coverage,” Ruthven said.

State Rep. Anton Gunn, an up-and-coming Democrat, said there is now a national perception about the state along the lines of, “If you want to hear something crazy, if you want to see something stupid, come to South Carolina.”

“I don’t agree with it,” he added, “but there’s this imagery of us being the whoopee cushion of the nation, and we continue to exacerbate that.”

Huffmon put it more simply: “South Carolina politics has become the car wreck on the American political highway, and the public can’t help but slow down and rubberneck.” 

Many in and around the state’s tight-knit political class are, however, growing annoyed at the continuing interest in Greene, which now includes reports that a documentary film is in the works. Both Democrats and Republicans believe the many media profiles of a small-town man who still lives with his father and doesn’t own a cell phone are veering toward mockery.

Gunn said the coverage reflected “condescension toward a Southern state.”

“Here is this guy in a rural town, who doesn’t have it all together and is appearing on TV with a 1993 family reunion shirt — I think it’s very much cultural,” Gunn said.

“The coverage has been patronizing, but because he has no chance to win and makes himself totally available, people can cover him any way they want and there won’t be any consequences to it,” Ruthven said. 

Another Democrat with deep South Carolina roots went further, expressing anger at both the media and Republicans for what he said was ridicule that wouldn’t take place if Greene were not African-American.

“It’s painful to watch,” the Democrat said, noting that state GOP operatives have now purchased website domains to link Greene with the Democrats’ gubernatorial nominee.

Eskew, referring to Haley, an Indian-American, and Lowcountry congressional candidate Tim Scott, an African-American, said, “In a state that has finally made good news politically by nominating two exceptional and interesting Republicans of different backgrounds, it’s unfortunate that it’s a black Democrat who is drawing attention for a lot of the wrong reasons.”

The interest in Greene has shown no signs of abating, as mash-up videos that ridicule his tics go viral on the Internet.

As much as anything else, the appeal of the Greene saga illustrates how the media ecosystem now works. His improbable candidacy began as something of a cult sensation among reporters and political junkies on Twitter and other social media.

At first, the possibility of mischief was alluring, but then the story took on a life of its own as details about Greene, including a pending criminal charge of obscenity, dribbled out. The story then quickly migrated to cable-TV and print-media outlets that discovered their politically inclined readers had a considerable appetite for the tale.

“It drives page views,” Ruthven said. “People who write about Alvin Greene are going to get clicked on. It has become more of an Internet sensation than it is anything else.”