Reply #13: Probably a Perfect Storm of Various Factors

[David in Canada]

The reason for Greene's victory is probably a confluence of various factors that melded into a perfect storm of craziness.

1) Both Greene and Rawl were basically unknowns, with the exception of Charleston County in Rawl's case, which Rawl did win and by a significant margin.

2) There was a competitive primary for governor which brought out a lot of voters, including low information voters. Most people who go to vote will vote for all offices regardless of whether or not they know anything about any of the candidates. Some will think if they leave any office blank, their vote will be invalidated so they will choose one candidate at random. There were a total of 197,380 Democratic ballots cast in the Democratic primary. Of those, 170,215 votes were cast in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary. That means over 86.23% of Democratic primary voters voted in the U.S. Senate primary. Do you honestly believe that the vast majority of those 86.23% knew enough about Greene OR Rawl to make a truly informed decision?

3) Even though Rawl was the only viable candidate, without any sort of name recognition or advertisement, he was no different to Greene to most voters. If the majority of primary voters were voting primarily for the gubernatorial race (or for some other down ballot race of primary importance) and had no information about the U.S. Senate race (neither candidate has TV or radio ads up) they would either skip the race altogether (as 13%+ of the primary voters did) or vote using a variety of factors. One is the fact that Greene was placed on the ballot first. If someone were voting for another office and came across it, they might simply vote for the top guy figuring if he was first, he must be the party favourite. Also, if one were to play eenie-meenie-minee-mo and start with Greene's name and move their finger with each word, Greene's name comes last. Another factor is that some voters will go with the better sounding name when neither rings a bell. Repeat in your head "Alvin Greene" three times. Now repeat the name "Vic Rawl" three times as well. Which one sounds smoother? Which one sounds (and reads) more professional. I would reckon most would answer Greene. Furthermore, the name of Vic Rawl kind of looks weird and, frankly, sounds like a cartoon villain. If anything, based on a superficial glance at the two names and the fact Greene was placed first, many low information voters would think, however fallaciously, that it was RAWL that was the gadfly, not Greene.

Another thing: While Greene won the election day voters, Rawl won the absentee voters. One is wondering, "How can this be?" Absentee voters tend to be more attentive to the candidates and issues in general and would likely be better acquainted with Rawl from the get go. Voting absentee requires some actual effort to do. Granted, it isn't the Sisyphean task it once was, but it isn't quite as easy as stopping by the polling station while out to get a gallon of milk, either. A more casual voter would be more likely to skip voting altogether, particularly in a primary, if they had to go out of their way to do so.

The lesson is that no candidate should assume victory is certain. When one assumes, they 'make an ass of u and me', as Rawl has undoubtedly learned.

I see not why one must read malice when one can reasonably explain the election results by attributing it to the laziness on Rawl's part as well as the ignorance of the electorate writ large.