State Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler says the party is ready to move past the primary. The Democratic Executive Committee on Thursday night upheld the results in the race for U.S. Senate that gave a win to unknown candidate Alvin Greene over Vic Rawl. 

Rawl protested the primary results. He said after the committee’s decision that the protest was his opportunity to call attention to voting issues that need to be addressed including voting machine irregularities.

Fowler says the party can help Greene as it helps all its candidates, but only if he is willing to help himself and put forth a campaign effort, after he works through legal issues he faces.  Fowler showed concern about Greene as a candidate after the primary when it was revealed that he faces a charge that he showed obscene photos to a student on the University of South Carolina campus.  

Fowler says to be a viable candidate, Greene will have to get his legal issues behind him before he campaigns.

AUDIO: Flower on Greene (3:10)

South Carolina’s Labor Party chose longtime progressive activist Brett Bursey to be the party’s candidate in the SC House District 69 race. The role goes beyond local politics, Bursey becomes the first candidate in the nation to be on a ballot for the party, which was formed in 1996.

The SC Labor Party held its state convention Saturday June 19 at the Communication Workers Union in West Columbia to prepare for the General Election. There were only about 25 attendees, according to state party chair Donna Dewitt. She says that was partly because of Longshoreman (ILA 1422) having to work a busy weekend at the ports.

The SC Labor Party received ballot status in 2006. This is not the same Labor Party of the turn-of-the-century movement, explains Dewitt. “ This is the new Labor Party. Nationally, we wanted to build the party base and platform, then find a candidate, not the other way around. Now the time’s right to field a candidate.”  

For the General Election ballot, the party gathered approximately 17,000 signatures, representing all 46 counties in the state. She says they set up booths at the state’s major flea markets–Coastal Flea Market, Anderson Jockey Lot, Lexington’s Barnyard Flea Market and the Pee Dee Flea Market– and got almost twice the signatures that they needed in order to get on the ballot. 

Saturday, the group nominated Bursey to represent 19 local unions, the state AFL-CIO and the Charleston and Columbia central labor councils.  Bursey is the director of the SC Progressive Network. [Read more...]