Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Eugene Platt: Bowed but Unbroken

Posted by Will Moredock on Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 12:12 AM

I had lunch with Eugene Platt recently and he wanted his friends and supporters to know that he still considers himself a worthy public servant and serious political contender, regardless what his detractors say. But he will no longer call himself a Democrat.

Platt has been a Democrat for years, of course, running for Congress and the General Assembly on the Democratic ticket and serving on the James Island Public Service Commission since 1993. What alienated him from the Charleston County Democrats was the way he went about running for the state House District 115 seat last year.

Platt was the nominee of the S.C. Green Party and also a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the District 115 seat. When he lost the Democratic primary to Anne Peterson Hutto in June, he remained in the race as the Green Party nominee. This infuriated local Democrats, who feared that he would draw away enough support to throw the election to Republican incumbent Wallace Scarborough. They went to court and had him removed from the ballot, arguing that he had signed a pledge when he announced as a Democratic candidate that he would not run as an independent or third party candidate should he lose the primary and that state law forbids a candidate from running for office on two different party tickets.  Platt maintained that he had been the Green Party nominee before he was a Democratic candidate and that entitled him to keep his status as that party's nominee. (Arguing on Platt's behalf in the case was the S.C. American Civil Liberties Union.)

Peterson Hutto went on to unseat Scarborough in a stunning upset in the strongest Democratic showing in S.C. in decades. But that did not mollify her allies and supporters, who excoriated Platt, online and to his face.

Platt told me that he was hurt by the rebuke from people he considered friends and colleagues, but he assured me he had nothing to apologize for. "The Green Party is a legitimate party," he said. "It's still tiny, but the Green Party is here to stay."

Platt said he has been an active Green for years, voting for Ralph Nader for President in 2000, 2004 and 2008. "Losing in the Democratic primary was a blessing in disguise," he said, "because it gave me the reason I needed to go completely Green."

He said he is already receiving postings on the Green Party website urging him to run again for the District 115 seat and he is leaning toward making that announcement and doing it earlier in this cycle than he did last time.

Platt, a 70-year-old retired federal employee and author of several volumes of poetry, said that he is a "man of faith" and a "spokesman for the Christian left."

"The essence of the Christian faith is love," he told me, "and it gets transformed and manifests itself as hate (by the Christian right)....I find a scriptural basis for all of my political positions."

"As I get older, I view life as more precious," he said. "I am against capital punishment. There are so many things that could be done to help the nation and the world, but neither major party has made a statement about capital punishment. The Bible says 'thou shalt not kill,' but it doesn't say anything about an exception for capital punishment."

Platt would like to bury the hatchet with the local Democratic Party, but he is not going away and he is going to apologize for being Green. It seems safe to say that we will hear more from this veteran politico in 2010.

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Platt (and Moredock) neglected to say that State law forbids running against the winner of a primary you contested; the pledge Platt signed just quotes that law. And he neglected to say that the same State law REQUIRED the Democratic party to go to court to enforce the law, and that the judge found none of the supposed "wiggle room" scenario to which Platt still clings. Because of his self-serving misadventures, Platt may be the cause of a law making its way through the legislature, doing away with fusion voting. That will remove any chance that small parties have an influence on South Carolina politics, because their candidate's votes won't be added to major party votes for that candidate. Way to go, Eugene. You caused great harm to the Democratic party, and now you're causing great harm to the minor parties. But Eugene goes sailing along, serene in the certain knowledge that he loves himself.

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Posted by Follitics on April 1, 2009 at 11:31 AM

Follitics never misses an opportunity to take out her personal beef with Eugene by distorting facts and blaming him for everything under the sun! Just as overzealous Democratic operatives tried to blame Ralph Nader for every disastrous blunder Bush made because he told people the truth and some of them voted for him. The ACLU would not have taken the case if they did not feel there was a miscarriage of justice in Eugene being barred from running as the candidate of a Party which had legally nominated him. A party which by the way has a much better track record of fighting for civil rights and social justice than either of the two major (corporate) parties. The Green Party believes we must put people in power who act with the best interests of the people in mind rather than the interests of those who fill their campaign coffers and the media outlets who control how and if the public perceives them. The Green Party represents a break from politics as usual and never takes money from corporations so it is not subject to being bribed to sell out the common good. Foolitics would have us believe that somehow it's in the best interests of third parties to let the initial decision on Eugene stand, meaning if their candidate loses another party's primary they are not allowed to remain on the ballot!? Please.

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Posted by Paul Platt on April 7, 2009 at 11:20 PM

Everyone who wants to run for office should have the right to do so. The Sore Loser Law needs to go. It is in place to protect the duopoly of the Republicans and the Democrats, and in this state there is not much difference between them. Why do the Dems bother to have a party platform when there is no requirement for their candidates to support that platform? Tommy Moore and Bob Connolly are just 2 examples of so-called Dems that I refused to vote for. We need more options and keeping viable candidates off the ballot simply protects the 2-party status quo while hurting the people. Follitics is wrong to attack Eugene when it is the system that is wrong.

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Posted by bflosue on May 1, 2009 at 1:20 PM
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