Posted on 07/18/2010 5:23:37 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
More than 400 people – including a throng of international media – filled the Manning Junior High School gymnasium to hear from Alvin Greene, the Democrat U.S. Senate hopeful whose unlikely primary win thrust him onto the national stage.
Greene, 32, an unemployed veteran who upset political favorite Vic Rawls with 100,000 votes, spoke to the crowd for about eight minutes, reading from prepared text; the speech got frequent applause.
Greene started his speech at the monthly meeting of the local NAACP branch in his hometown by slowly rattling off national job loss statistics and South Carolina’s dismal rankings in standardized tests. Organizers moved the location of the meeting twice — first to a larger church, then the local junior high school as the number of people expected to come swelled.
“We have more unemployed now in South Carolina than any other time in our state’s history,” he said.
He suggested infrastructure projects put on hold after 9/11 could be restarted, such as an interstate from Michigan to the South Carolina coast.
“Let’s get South Carolina and America back to work and let’s move South Carolina forward,” he said.
After the 1-hour, 20-minute affair, which included several local speakers, Greene stood on stage signing autographs. The press was kept away. Then he was escorted quickly off the stage by a group of retired master sergeants who were in full uniform. Greene didn’t take any questions. He walked through the halls of the school and got into his Mercury SUV and drove off, escorted by Manning police. One of the retired escorts said he inspected Greene’s vehicle beforehand; it was just a precaution, he told reporters.
The 300 seats set up for Greene’s first public appearance since unexpectedly winning the June 8 primary were all filled. The parking lot of the relatively new school was filled with cars and news media trucks.
And counting the 15 video cameras trained on the stage, it was a packed house.
A campaign worker with a Greene for U.S. Senate shirt was videotaping the crowd of reporters surrounding the candidate as he drove away.
This was Greene’s first public appearance as the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate. He faces incumbent Jim DeMint in the November election.
You know someone is backing him.
20 citizens, and 380 media. LOL
They picked the stranger ~ now if that's not a message to the Democrats I don't know what is.
All of us here on FR have to be proud of the fact our fellow Americans are figuring out that the regular Democrats mean no one well.
No video?
Still has to be better than Joe Biden and AlGore.
Here are some clips of his speech :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxMrLEj59To
Can hardly wait to see him debate Jim DeMint.
LOL! Move over Sarah, there’s now a Democrat that can also pack’em in.
No, someone is backing him. You don’t go national like that against a really good senator without some help.
This guy needs a teleprompter. He also needs someone else to read it for him.
A packed house to see the village idiot. He makes more sense than the other rats running the show.
Yeah, you can go "South Carolina", if not "national" without a whole lot of money.
Now I know Lindsey Graham's mailers tell you it costs a lot to campaign and beat the Democrats, but if you were Senator Graham's staff you'd want him to say that so you could stay employed.
This Mr. Greene appears to have volunteers, few needs, and a low cost campaign. The last guy to do that is currently the Mayor of Indianapolis.
Unless this guy gets more elaborate, he doesn't need big money behind him.
Frankly it's a fool's errand to go looking for the money ~ first, win the election!
1) Disbelief, confusion (who is he?)
2) Outrage -- the Republicans did it!
3) Acceptance -- he's a liberal hero who came from nowhere.
When he loses, the Democrats will blame it on racism.
And so it goes.
Too bad we couldn't have rallied him into action here in California!
Would like to hear whats up with that. I know they are retired, but they should probably not be wearing the uniform at a political event.
RE: Here’s a video of one of the people who voted for him:
She said she voted for him because his name reminded her of her favorite singer — Al Green.
I wonder if I’d get a better chance at election if I officially changed my name to Tom Hanks...
WTF, over.
I just think it’s great that this guy could short-circuit the system and get himself nominated. Also, now that the libs are basically over their initial anger at him for being a Republican plant, it will be interesting to watch how the media treats him. I’m guessing they coddle him, that he becomes kind of a feel-good side story tacked onto their election coverage going into November. Either that or it’ll be a total blackout because they’re embarrassed by him. I guess we’ll see.
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