Green Party Senate candidate: I offer voters an alternative

COLUMBIA -- A recent Rasmussen poll showed Republican Senator Jim DeMint with 58 percent of the vote, Democrat Alvin Greene, 21 percent and "some other candidate" with nine percent of the vote.

Little media attention has been given to the other "unknown" candidate in the race for the U.S. Senate seat,Tom Clements, the Green Party candidate who claimed that nine percent as his own in a release last week.

Although history shows little love for Green Party candidates in South Carolina, Clements is confident his chance in this election is as good as any.

He admits no experience as an elected official, but sees it as an advantage over incumbents like DeMint.

Clements, a graduate of Emory University and the University of Georgia, works for the environmental organization Friends of the Earth on nuclear issues and is considered the public interest watchdog over the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site nuclear complex located near Aiken, SC.

He feels entrenched incumbents are the reason for the "poisonous atmosphere in Washington which has led to roadblocks to progress."

"I think we need to get a lot of the incumbents out of Washington," he said.

What the media is calling "anti-incumbent rage" is said to be a major factor causing voters to look outside of the usual Democratic and Republican candidates and to groups like the The Tea Party and The Green Party.

A press release from Clements campaign vows to "spice up" the South Carolina Senate election which has already been peppered by rumors of foul play after Alvin Greene, an unknown, unemployed veteran, won the Democratic primary over Judge Vic Rawl earlier this month.

"I'm starting to hear from people who are not satisfied with the candidates presented by the Democrat and Republican parties and expect support from a broad spectrum of the electorate," Clements said.

A major part of his platform lies in a combination of conservation and job creation.

"We keep hearing it, but there's not much progress towards exploiting all the job possibilities in South Carolina. If we focus on alternative energy and remember jobs there, I think we (South Carolina) could be a real leader in that area," he said.

Clements said South Carolina tax payers are fed up with watching DeMint support out-of-state candidates and interests in Washington while neglecting existing problems in South Carolina.

His resume shows work with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and foreign policy experience in contrast to the other challenger for DeMint's seat, Alvin Greene, who's name yielded almost no search results on Google before May. In contrast, Clements has a record of in environmental work that can be traced back to the 80s in online newspaper archives.

Clements campaigned in Aiken Tuesday and Charleston over the weekend and said the reaction is mostly positive when people find out he is running because voters are happy to have more choices.

But Despite Clements’ growing support on Facebook, Richard Almeida, a political science professor from Francis Marion University, said it probably won't translate to the polls.

"The Green Party has never been a major player in South Carolina state politics," he said. "People are most likely to vote along party lines - Democrat and Republican."

And political analysts predict an easy win for Demint.

Almeida said the results of the Rasmussen poll can be easily misread.

"That 10 percent really wish someone they envision as a perfect candidate would run, but I wouldn't say that translates directly to support for a Green Party candidate or a minor party candidate," he said.

Democratic candidate Alvin Greene has said on multiple occasions that he is interested in a televised debate in September. Clements said he would be interested in attending and informing the voters about his positions.

Clements said he will probably stop in Florence as his campaign picks up steam, but right now they are still working on raising money.