Foul Play Suspected In Surprise SC Senate Outcome

South Carolina Democratic leaders are scratching their heads and trying frantically to undo the results of this week's U.S. Senate primary. Democratic voters on Tuesday chose an unemployed veteran with no political experience to challenge Republican U.S. Senator Jim DeMint. 32-year old Alvin Greene did not run an organized campaign or report raising any money. But he still got nearly 60 percent of the vote against a well-known Charleston attorney. Democratic Congressman Jim Clyburn yesterday said he thinks something illegal happened "I think the state and federal authorities need to look into this and figure out exactly who is behind this because something is amiss," says Clyburn. He questioned how an unemployed man could come up with the $10,000 filing fee to enter the Senate race. Clyburn also compared the situation to a controversy in 1990 when a political consultant in South Carolina was convicted of paying an African American fisherman to join a Congressional race as a Republican. Alvin Greene told Democratic Party officials the $10,000 he used to file for Senate was his own. Attorneys for the party are looking into the election, but have not requested the U.S. Attorney conduct a formal investigation. State Democratic Party chairwoman Carol Fowler says she has no evidence Greene or his supporters did anything fraudulent. "I don't know why he won," says Fowler. The day after the Primary Election, Fowler called Greene and asked him to withdraw from the race. "But it was not because of anything except the fact that we have learned since the election that he has been charged with a sex offense," says Fowler. "I don't think that's appropriate to have a candidate running on the Democratic ticket who is charged as a sex offender." Only after Tuesday's primary did the Associated Press uncover court documents showing Greene faces a felony charge for showing obscene photos to a college student. He has not yet been indicted or entered a plea. Greene refuses to discuss the charges. He is also refusing to drop out of the race.