Tennessee's own Alvin Greene
Democrats in South Carolina who were embarrassed about Alvin Greene's surprise win for the 2010 Democratic Senate nomination are probably feeling a little better following news of the outcome of the Tennessee Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, where Mark Clayton a little-known radical prevailed in a field of seven candidates who were seeking the Democratic nod to face GOP Senator Bob Corker.
Even though it's likely that the Tennessee Democratic primary field was far more active than the one where Greene prevailed, Clayton still managed to win in spite of a record of making controversial statements, including:
- “The federal government is building a massive, four-football-field wide superhighway from Mexico City to Toronto as part of a secret plot to establish a new North American Union that will bring an end to America as we know it”
- The approach of a “godless new world order” in which Americans who speak out against the government are sent to “a bone-crushing prison camp similar to … one of FEMA’s prison camps” (which don’t exist either).
- Google censored Clayton’s 2008 campaign against U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander in cooperation with the Chinese government
- “[Former California Gov. Arnold] Schwarzenegger, born in Austria, wants to amend the Constitution so that he can become president and fulfill Hitler’s superman scenario.”
Not surprisingly, Clayton's nomination was quickly rejected by the leadership of his home state Democratic Party. We imagine that the national Democratic party won't be endorsing his candidacy either.
While Clayton carried just thirty percent of the roughly 160,000 votes cast in the Democratic primary (no other candidate got more than fifteen percent of the primary vote), Tennessee awards the nomination to the first-place primary winners without holding run-off votes between top primary contenders.
We find it hard to believe that a full thirty percent of the primary voters didn't know what they were doing when they voted for Clayton. Even though defeating Corker in this red state is probably a long-shot, it's hard to believe that Democrats were unable to consolidate the field behind a more credible candidate. Like Clayton, Alvin Greene stands as a warning that when a party completely writes off a Senate race, there's no telling who will win the nomination when nobody is looking.
While Clayton carried just thirty percent of the roughly 160,000 votes cast in the Democratic primary (no other candidate got more than fifteen percent of the primary vote), Tennessee awards the nomination to the first-place primary winners without holding run-off votes between top primary contenders.
We find it hard to believe that a full thirty percent of the primary voters didn't know what they were doing when they voted for Clayton. Even though defeating Corker in this red state is probably a long-shot, it's hard to believe that Democrats were unable to consolidate the field behind a more credible candidate. Like Clayton, Alvin Greene stands as a warning that when a party completely writes off a Senate race, there's no telling who will win the nomination when nobody is looking.
Six years ago, Corker won a close and hotly-contested race for the then-open Senate seat once held by Fred Thompson. With Democrats walking on candidacy, this year's race will be a sure-bet landslide re-election for Corker, much like Jim DeMint's 2010 race against Greene.
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