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Greene: ‘He knows how you feel, ’cause he’s unemployed, too’

Political observers will attest that the majority of campaign ads are banal rehashings of tempered stump speeches. But we were greeted this week with a pleasant–and yet remotely disturbing–break from that pattern, with the video “Greene is on the scene,” a parody of South Carolina Democratic Senate nominee Alvin Greene’s campaign missteps set to a retro hip-hop tune.

The New York Times reported Thursday the video was, to the surprise of its nearly-18,000 viewers, an official product of the Greene campaign. That report also came as a surprise to the Greene campaign, according to CNN, who said it had no involvement in the video.

“I don’t know who made it.” But, the candidate said Friday morning, “it sounds good. Make sure everybody hears it.”

Notable lyrics include: “Well, Greene’s a new face in politics. And he don’t show porno to college chicks. … Real family values, those are rad. He loves family and lives with his mom and dad! … Alvin Greene is the one for you. He knows how you feel, ’cause he’s unemployed, too!”

As much as the wrongful attribution of the parody to the Greene campaign is an indictment of lazy reporting, it is also a testament to the spectacle that is Alvin Greene.

As a professional political consultant, I would hope no candidate would attest to their unemployed status, voluntarily acknowledge they live with their parents, or make a vague reference to felony charges related to pornography in an official campaign production. Of course, I would also hope that no black candidate would show obscene material to a white female college student not-yet twenty in a state with a history of racial tensions, unveil a jobs plan whose central plank was the production of candidate-resembling action figures, or film the campaign’s inaugural interview from a messy den wearing socks and a ratted family reunion t-shirt.

But Alvin Greene managed to do all those things. And more.

Cross-posted to Skepticians.com.

Follow James on Twitter.

COMMENTS

  • http://www.scragged.com petrarch

    I mean, you gotta admit, Sen. Greene would be vastly superior to Sen. Reid, or for that matter, Sen. Clinton. I have to feel a soft spot for the guy.

  • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

    Given the choice of these two men, Greene would be less damaging.

  • CincoSolas_del_Bronx

    If this is indeed a replay, Mr. Greene will shortly endorse Sen. DeMint, as Mr. Tuttle did Sen. Leahy.

  • http://www.suvstrategery.blogspot.com SoFiMil

    That joke he told at the NAACP function was hilarious. He just needs to work on his delivery.

  • http://www.suvstrategery.blogspot.com SoFiMil

    Wonder what LeBron’s approval #s are at these days.

  • callawyn

    Greene hasn’t admitted to spending several years smoking pot.

    Has not admitted to having graduated from pot to Cocaine.

    There are no allegations that Greene received a BJ in the back of a limo from his male driver while smoking crack.

    Greene’s father was not a Communist who favored a 100% tax rate for his nation.

    Greene did not spend 20 years as a member of a ‘church’ that preached Hatred of America, Hatred of White People and Marxist Social Theory disguised as ‘black liberation theology’.

    He may have launched his campaign in a den in a ratty t-shirt, but he did NOT launch his political career in the living room of an unrepentant terrorist and murderer.

    Greene did NOT have a leader of the Communist Party of the USA as his mentor while growing up.

    There is no speculation that Greene was sodomized by his Communist mentor.

    Greene did not travel to Pakistan for unknown reasons on an unknown Visa (possibly proving his Indonesian citizenship).

    Greene actually possesses a long form US Birth Certificate and will produce same upon request.

    Greene did not give a big speech praising a spokesman for the PLO at a going away party, nor are there any allegations that said spokesman for a terrorist organization pulled strings to get him into Harvard.

    Greene would likely be very willing to release all of his academic records.

    Greene has never been photographed teaching Alinsky’s ‘Rules for Radicals’ (a book originally dedicated by its author to Lucifer, yes that Lucifer currently and forever reigning in Hell) while employed by ACORN.

    Greene has proven where he obtained his fee for getting on the ballot (saved up his unemployment benefits while living at home with mom) so there are no allegations that he improperly used funds from a non-profit group like ACORN to fund his campaign.

    Greene has not been the beneficiary of an illegal fundraiser in Gaza sponsored by HAMAS.

    Greene has not threatened to fundamentally transform America.

    Greene never threatened to destroy the Coal industry, necessitating that Electricity rates skyrocket.

    Greene has never boasted of cultivating an ability to seem reasonable while concealing an extremely radical agenda.

    Greene never stated on the floor of the Senate that the Surge in Iraq would make the situation worse.

    Alvin Greene can answer a question without having someone in the next room typing his response into his teleprompter.

    Alvin Greene has never told an audience that they “don’t have to worry about immigrants learning to speak English, they should worry about teaching their own kids Spanish” while at a campaign rally.

    As campaigns go, Alvin Greene seems to me to be doing infinitely better than Obama at this stage. The only difference is O had nearly the entire MSM shilling for him, refusing to report on anything that might appear as a negative while spouting nonsense about his prowess as a speaker. Oh yeah, and O’s a snazzy dresser, so he had that going for him (I actually work with a man who openly declared he was going to vote for Obama because of his taste in ties. He was not joking.)

    I understand he’s a military vet? Unlike O, he probably wasn’t taught his entire life to hate America and everything it stands for.

    He has as much executive experience O had on Inauguration Day, precisely zero.

    Given what has transpired over these past 18 months, does anyone doubt that we’d all be much better off if Alvin Greene had been the POTUS instead of Obama? He couldn’t possibly have done any more damage than O has.

    I won’t be surprised if Al Greene gets >30% of the vote. If he were the D running in Maxine Waters district, he’d win.

    • http://www.suvstrategery.blogspot.com SoFiMil

      Also, *if* the subject of your disdain was sexually abused by a high-ranking member of CPUSA,I don’t see how being the victim of such sexual abuse is disqualifying . To suggest otherwise is shameful.

    • ss396

      That’s quite a litany of things Mr. Greene hasn’t done. It brings to mind Dave Barry’s proposed amendment to the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law.” With candidates like Mr. Greene, that could actually happen, without the messiness of having to codify it. I see that as a win-win. Heaven knows that these days I am so ticked off at the NRC and the NRSC that, as many have stated, if he wasn’t running against Sen. DeMint it would be worth it to vote for the guy.

      (Yes, yes, I know that elections have consequences, and that we are living with that type of thinking today. Still, ya gotta love it!)

      • callawyn

        They know this, and they have no qualms about doing so. For an ‘R’, all you need is one ‘macaca’ moment and you could be done. That’s why some 400 ‘journalists’ descended on Alaska the day after Palin was announced for VP. They all wanted to be the one that found the dirt that destroyed her. When its found, they keep bringing it up over and over and over until election day and beyond. If they find nothing, they distort or fabricate.

        For D’s its the opposite. The above list is just the tip of the iceberg of the baggage that Obama actually had, many of which would have prevented an R from even thinking of running. For instance his ‘work’ in the IL state legislature as chairman of HHS committee where he blocked, check this out:

        http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/obama_and_infanticide.html

        Think you could get elected dog catcher if you had media pundits labeling you ‘Babykiller’? Babies born alive, that mothers had wanted to abort, were left to die of exposure as a direct result of Obama killing this bill, they’d put them on a cold metal table, no blanket, and let them die. The federal govt and 49 states passed laws to stop this happening, Obama prevented such a law in Illinois. To him, what was important was the mother’s wish to abort. The fact that the baby survived the procedure was irrelevant to him. Despite being born alive, awake, breathing and crying, severed from its umbilical cord, the child never gained any rights. Sen Boxer has similar views on Abortion, she’s actually stated that a baby gains civil rights ‘when you take it home from the hospital’. Obama, when asked by Rick Warren when a baby gets “human rights”, famously replied, ?? whether you?re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity ? is above my pay grade.?

        For a D, for president, you’ve got nearly the whole MSM blocking for you. 400+ jouno-listas for starters. So, there’s really no such thing as baggage, or at least there wasn’t until Fox showed it was willing to focus on Ayers and Wright.

        For Alvin Greene, he wasn’t the left’s pick, they wanted the establishment guy that ran against him. Otherwise, they’d have ponied up to get him a sharp suit, a campaign manager and all you’d hear out of the press is what a ‘compelling life story’ he has.

        So, make fun of Al Greene all you want, but don’t kid yourselves that the entire narrative couldn’t have been different if the Democratic party had put the effort into making him presentable and gotten the media to carry water for him.. I promise you, he’s no more incompetent than a Maxine Waters, or a Hank ‘Guam tip over’ Johnson or a number of other D’s already in office. Have you ever listened to the D’s House Majority leader James Clyburn speak?

  • Adjoran

    This “As a professional political consultant” stuff demands the inquiry: which of your clients has won a major party nomination for US Senate without spending a dime or holding any public events?

    I daresay NONE. So there’s something Alvin Greene has done for himself that few professionals can come close to claiming as their own achievement.

    Look, Jim DeMint is the most popular politician in SC right now, and SC is a state which hasn’t turned out an incumbent Senator since Coleman Blease lost in the primary in 1930. The Democratic nomination is worth sideshow promotional value only, and Greene is doing a fair job of getting it.

  • svenhoek

    I have a feeling that DeMint is going to be the confused looking one. Maybe that will be Greene’s brilliant strategy, getting Demint to go on TV and just go “Uhhhh, what?” the whole time.