The Accidental Candidate: The Rise and Fall of Alvin Greene - Softcover

Hutchins, Corey; Axe, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786474297 ISBN 13: 9780786474295

Publisher: McFarland, 2012

Synopsis

In 2010 a 32-year-old, socially awkward, unemployed African-American Army Veteran, who had been kicked out of the service and was living with his father in the South Carolina countryside while facing federal pornography charges, spent a significant portion of his life's savings on the filing fee to run for U.S. Senate in the Democratic primary to challenge incumbent tea party kingmaker Jim DeMint. Alvin Greene didn't campaign, didn't have a website and no one knew who he was.

Until he won.

About this title

About the Authors

Corey Hutchins, a reporter for the Columbia Free Times, is the South Carolina Press Association's 2012 journalist of the year.

David Axe is a freelance reporter based in Columbia, South Carolina, and the author of the graphic novel War is Boring.

Blue Delliquanti is a cartoonist and illustrator based in Atlanta and the creator of the graphic novel O Human Star.

Reviews

Long-form journalism meets sequential art in this startling and informative investigation of South Carolina politics. The titular subject is an unbalanced and unconnected man who was rumored to have been guided by Republicans to get his name on the Democratic ticket in South Carolina’s 2010 Senate contest. Hutchins, Axe, and Delliquanti explore the story and its lead persona with skill and a well-paced reconstruction of the extraordinary debasement of the political system, as Greene hijacked the ballot from more rational candidates to run against Jim DeMint. The black-and-white artwork provides excellent reportage of persons, dispositions, and the interplay between Greene’s delusions of grandeur and his reality. The reporters include themselves in the report, showing how and where they posed questions, as well as the responses elicited by various players. This is an important story that deserves wide reader attention as journalism, as well as providing a fine example, in a smaller frame, of the kind of work Joe Sacco has been doing for years. --Francisca Goldsmith

Edition details

• Publisher: McFarland
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0786474297
• ISBN 13: 9780786474295
• Binding: Paperback
• Illustrator: Delliquanti Blue
• Number of pages: 128