The law of unintended consequences

Dwayne Green is now running for a state senate seat that isn’t just any seat, it’s Robert Ford’s seat, a Democrat who has represented Charleston County since 1993 and is one of the most prominent black leaders in the state.

Why mount a primary run against a popular sitting senator? Green, who is a lawyer, objected to the comments Ford made a year ago that Obama’s nomination would “doom” every other Democratic candidate on the ticket. “We'd lose the House, the Senate and the governors and everything. I'm a gambling man. I love Obama. But I'm not going to kill myself,” said Ford.

So Green threw his hat in the ring. “I thought it was terrible that a black elected official would attack the most viable presidential candidate we’ve ever had.”

So while Ford was professing to look out for the seats of fellow Democrats, he managed to put his own in jeopardy. The primary is June 10 and Green hopes to raise $100K for the run; he just passed the $50K mark according to his own calculations. Anecdotally, folks around here tend to think Green has a fighting chance. Obama's candidacy seems to be pushing change one way or the other.

Incidentally, gays and lesbians here say Robert Ford has really stuck his neck out for the LGBT community – introducing a series of pro-gay bills after SC voters overwhelmingly passed a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in 2006. “Ford, to his credit, has been very supportive of gays and lesbians,” says Green, adding, “In me, the community would not be losing anything.”