Lest you be dismissive of the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, first check out his plan for bringing jobs back to South Carolina, as reported by The Guardian (which, last time I checked, was not part of the SC MSM that should be covering this election):
“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.”
No, I’m not making this up. It’s not a joke. A new twist on GI Joe. That’s his plan. You know, as a guy who was unemployed for a really long time, I’m resenting the picture he’s presenting to the world of guys like us. And for the record, I have NOT shown any dirty pictures to co-eds.
But as a Mad Man, I think I smell a tagline in the making. He could build his whole campaign around it: “It’s not a joke!”
And you know what, it isn’t. Not a funny one, anyway.
Backup tagline: “It’s not something a typical person would bring up.”
And as I could tell the client in all honesty, there are plenty more where those two came from…
Related Posts
Alvin sees these dolls as heroic action figures in military uniforms.
If someone DID make an Alvin Greene doll, it would wear a family reunion T-shirt. If you pulled its string it would say nothing, but run and hide in its father’s basement until the primary was over.
But that sort of doll would be cruel, wouldn’t it?
Brad, at least Alvin Greene served in the military? Did you?
You got on to me on another post for poking fun at the Catholic Church. This seems just as much over the top.
Brad’s just jealous because his parents only bought him a Ken doll complete with bowtie and briefcase when all of his buddies got GI Joe with the Kung Fu grip.
Well, I’ve been holding myself back. This is one of those situations in which you’ve either gotta laugh or you’ve gotta cry. And I’m not a crier.
What’s a commentator supposed to do faced with this kind of thing? If this was just some poor, deluded guy living out his private life and thinking something like this is a good idea, I would never dream of joking about it. But this is the Democratic nominee for the United States Senate. For real. Not in his imagination, but for real.
But you touch a nerve. I DO feel guilty about joking about it. I feel sorry for the guy. I’d feel protective of him — were he not the Democratic nominee for the United States Senate…
Alvin Greene: Either TBI or Asperger’s–I’m thinking the latter, since he was nicknamed Turtle as a boy. Poking fun at him *is* shooting fish in a barrel, just as lampooning Sarah Pain was. And Sarah Palin’s candidacy was just as real and even more serious, as she stood a greater chance of being elected and if so, being one old cancer survivor away from the Presidency….so we joked, to keep from crying.
Here’s the thing we need to know–how did he get the money to file, or did he lie when he got a public defender?
I believe we deserve to know that and to see Nikki’s transparent emails.
I want one of those green Greene t-shirts. As social commentary the irony is just too rich.
Now a Richard Pryor doll so modified would have been sick, though, right?
Get this: In the last 24 hours, that Alvin Greene story is the most-read story on the Guardian’s Web site. Yeah, the Guardian. In London. England.
Well, we know how to be entertaining down here. Amusing, aren’t we?
I have a dream that one day our politics won’t be a slapstick comedy….
See Alvin Greene is more important than the Queen… who was in NYC for a ceremony to honor the British citizens killed in 9-11. Alvin Greene may just be the next ruler of the entire world.
Would you believe – I first read this on the Washington Post site?!
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/07/alvin-greene-suggests-making-d.html
I feel embarrassed for him – but at the same time, what Kathryn said – Where did he get his money? etc. I’d like those question about Haley answered, too.
Well, the Queen made some visits, as per usual. Someone suggesting that the way to create jobs and solve our economic woes is to make an action figure (and accessories, sold separately, mind you), and action figure of himself, and he is an unemployed, involuntarily discharged veteran who won a primary for major office…..which story are you going to read and forward to your friends, with the intro “Crazy Yanks!”
Which do you think Jon Stewart is going to cover?
It’s not relative “importance’–it’s entertainment, folks! That’s what sells papers.
I once had a Michael Jackson doll that I cut a hole in the top of its head and inserted a cigarette lighter. Used it to light tiki torches. Do I feel bad about that now? Naw.
So THAT’s what sells papers! Dang. This explains SO much…
You should have mentioned this to me sooner…
Burl? I think that’s funny. You should only feel bad if someone from his family came over to your place for a tiki party and saw it. Assuming that didn’t happen, it’s funny.
C’mon, I see racks and racks of tabloids at the supermarket, selling like wild! Only the News of the World (favorite headline “Famed Psychic’s Head Explodes”) went under that I can remember. Compare to your serious journalism….
So, you need more Lindsay Lohan and less Lindsey Graham.
Alvin’s plan is a whole lot more than anything coming from DeMint.
DeMint is not more than a preposition ahead of Greene when it comes to public speaking. I remember watching him stutter and stammer, barely uttering a coherent phrase in the “debates” w/ Inez Tennebaum (it still rankles my fur that we didn’t elect her to Congress). A shining bulb Jimmy is not.
I’m w/ Pat and Kathryn on getting answers about the filing fee & Haley’s emails. I also would like to know why we are voting on machines that according to The Verified Voting Foundation, “cannot be effectively audited or recounted.” These machines are not used by any other state, we bought Louisiana’s rejects. And I don’t understand how any dedicated voter would be okay w/ our voting system right now.
I thought the story about the voting machines had been debunked.
Maybe not, though. it’s estimated 600+ dead people voted in Hampton County in the primary….in the race for coroner! Get it?
Kathrynn, do you think Lindsay Lohan knows who Lindsay Graham, Alvin Greene or Nikki Haley are?
Would we all be happier if we didn’t know?
At least Candidate Greene is thinking. He’s making an effort. Candidate DeMint? When you pull the string on HIS action figure, it only says “NO!” and “YOU LIE!”
@Libb–USC Computer Science Professor Duncan Buell has been saying the voting machines are seriously wrong for years–he wrote a paper on it with his colleague, Professor Carter Bays. I can’t link to it–it’s a pdf, but if you google it….
I think extremely highly of Duncan and he is very well-respected, having been both the chair of the CSE department and acting dean of the Engineering School. Do we need the equivalent of hanging chads to fix this–oh, wait, there’s a nickname for Mr. Greene–The Electronic Hanging Chad.
After Kathryn’s comment I was going to draw a distinction between “papers” and tabloids, but I don’t think I could best Mike Myers’ explanation in So I Married and Axe Murderer …
(Sigh) I sometimes wince when I tell people I’m from South Carolina, you know, that state where a)a real unknown won the Demo nomination for U.S. Senate; b)where a state senator doesn’t know the difference between Arabs and Sikhs; c)where the slogan, “Joe Means Jobs” should really be read “Give My Son a Job as Attorney General.” (Sigh)
Cindi Scoppe talked about the electronic voting machines this morning. I thought her analysis was extremely superficial and missed the point entirely. The machines have PROPRIETARY software that cannot be analyzed by anyone outside the manufacturer. That’s problem number 1. Problem number 2 is that in order to count the votes they take the results from the machines and download them into something like an Excel Spreadsheet that’s easy to manipulate. Since there’s no paper backup who’s to say whether the machines were wrong or the spreadsheet was tampered with.
Then Cindi brought up the whole notion that printers can jam or run out of paper. Those are simple and easily addressed problems that a reasonably competent poll worker can deal with.
Then she talks about the 90 year old woman who claims her paper verification ballot doesn’t match the machine. This is very simple. Just have her circle the name of the person she did want to vote for and have her place it in a separate provisional ballot box. If the election is close this can be used to replace the electronic vote. Otherwise the electronic vote stands.
No one should have to doubt the integrity of the system because it is controlled by a single company that does not allow scrutiny of it’s software. The only way to prevent that is with a paper trail. The machines do prevent problems inherent with punch card machines and paper ballots alone. But let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water by eliminating an audit trail. The circumstantial evidence grows by the day that these machines can be manipulated. Let’s fix the problem now before it blows up in our face.
@Libb
“A shining bulb Jimmy is not.”
Right. And he beat Inez by how many points? And his endorsement is sought by how many candidates? Comparing Green to DeMint in any way shows a desperation that goes beyond partisanship.
100,000 people voted for Alvin Green. Where he got the money to put his name on the ballot doesn’t matter. Should we also assume that Jim Rex beat Vincent Sheheen?
Speaking of Lohan and laughing at people in the public eye, I kind of liked this (and I’m trying to expand y’all’s internet reading material a little…):
http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/07/06/lindsay-lohans-sentencing-live-feed/
And that second parenthesis up there, followed by a colon, looks like an annoying frownie face. Sometimes punctuation is just punctuation.
@ Greg Jones–Recent events have confirmed that Lindsey Lohan doesn’t even know who Lindsey Lohan is. So sad…
bud, my sentiments exactly, superficial, missing the point, and left me w/ the impression that Ms Scoppe really didn’t want to be “bothered” w/ this issue. Disappointing that she concluded “we don’t even have any evidence…”. Did she look? I thought the editorial column printed a week or so ago by Barbara Zia(League of Women Voters) offered compelling reasons to look at the problems w/ our voting machines.
And, yep(I’ve read him), and thank you, Kathryn, for throwing Buell’s name out there as another reputable voice in this matter.
For any who are interested, Brett Bursey and his group have filed a federal complaint to require the state to at least preserve voting records in federal elections(something to do w/ whether or not we are following the intent of the federal voting preservation laws). Apparently each county is responsible for recording/preserving the results on disk but the State Election Commission can’t verify that the counties are appropriately doing so and says it’s not their responsibility to gather or keep those records. That really distresses me, are our election laws that whack?
Do you guys really think if someone was going to monkey with the votes that they would create a result that would generate so much attention on the validity of the results? You think someone with the power to influence an election would risk exposing their methods in a race that DeMint was a lock to win anyway?
It’s more likely (in a conspiracy theory world) that they to make small changes in a very close election to get the result they wanted.
The most likely scenario is the one we already know – that an ill-informed electorate pushed the button next to the name that “sounded” like the best candidate. Stupid is as stupid does, Forrest.
@Doug–I doubt anyone monkeyed with the Alvin Greene vote, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a serious issue with our particular voting machines, one my oracle Cindi let me down on today–sure, the guy who chose them thinks they’re great. My money’s with Duncan and Carter–they have no particular ax to grind–they are tenured faculty, and in Carter’s case, retired–they aren’t selling machines or choosing them, and they have a lot of expertise in information technology.
Doug, I’m not specifically citing the Greene incident for possible fraud. That probably did happen just as you said. But in a potentially close election the machines could be programmed to randomly add a few votes here and there to give their chosen guy a boost. If the election turns out to be a landslide they just let it go. But if it’s close the extra few, and unnoticed, votes tip the scales in their favor. Given the proprietary nature of the machines who would know? We absolutely need a paper trail for these machines. If nothing else it would humor us naysayers.
@Bud
I agree. A paper trail should be a requirement.
Just don’t tie that objective to Alvin Greene.
@Doug
I must chime in w/ bud & Kathryn. Never said the machines “caused” Alvin Greene. But I do maintain there were enough problems to warrant further scrutiny. For example, a James Island voter testified that, after casting a vote for Rawl, a gray screen popped up saying “vote registered for Alvin Greene”. Other voters testified that the machine(s) would not accept their vote(s) for Rawl. And, pray tell, just how do we know these reject machines are working in integrity since there’s no way to audit/recount them?
The voting machines in my county remind me of the Atari games of the ’70’s with the big cartridge and all. And there’s no audit mechanism? I don’t know.
Alvin has my vote. I dislike DeMint soooo much.
My daughter and I are both poll workers. Voters here have the choice of paper and electronic ballot. When using the electronic machine, a paper receipt with a call number is issued to the voter, and the votes themselves on a continuous paper copy are displayed on the machine for a last-minute check by the voter. If there’s a later challenge, the paper strip can be added up, and if necessary, if a voter wants to make sure later if his vote was correctly counted, it can be located by the call number and time of day. After elections, poll workers do random checks of compiled paper-trail strips to make sure the registered votes match.