An article from WISTV in South Carolina, including the rare news that the Green Party candidate for US Senate has raised more than the Democratic candidate:
USC political expert Mark Tompkins says any third party candidate faces tough odds. “Many Democrats who are unhappy about the situation they find themselves in the Senate race,” said Tompkins. “But I’m not sure that a Green Party candidate is going to be that successful.”
Tompkins says Clements has to have support from a lot of disaffected Democrats, independents and moderate Republicans to be competitive. Conventional wisdom says he needs money to do that, and so far Clements has raised only $15,000.
Then again, Alvin Greene proved when it comes to winning an election in South Carolina, money isn’t everything.
I’m currently engaged in an editorial struggle on Wikipedia trying to keep Clements included on the “United States Senate Election in South Carolina, 2010” page. Editors are trying to impose a 5% polling cut off for getting your picture on the pages. Its hard to reach that threshold when the polls won’t mention your name.
I’m making the argument that getting on the ballot should be the test. Wikipedia doesn’t need to discriminate more than states do already. I don’t know how the argument will go. Interested parties are encouraged to visit the page and contribute.
Generic “other” always gets a fair share in polls regardless of whether there is one actual other, several, or none. In this case, there could be some potential for 2nd place due to the weakness of the Democrat.
That the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate Tom Clements raised that much money in South Carolina deserves notice and praise.
The Green Party money raised is impressive.
Rasmussen, one of the only ones to poll the race so far, still won’t include Clements in the poll. Other gets a whole 8% of the vote, and there is only one other candidate on the ballot. There is a Democratic writein campaign that has gotten a little bit of attention, but overall I think alot of these would vote for Clements.