US Senate nominee Matthews has shades of Greene’s campaign in 2010. Naivety connects them

U.S. Senate candidate Krystle Matthews is South Carolina’s new Alvin Greene.

Her latest comment unveiled in a secret recording proves it.

Anyone who remembers Greene, the improbable political novice who won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in 2010, can find similarities in his campaign to Matthews’ current run in absurdity and probability to lose. Even an unprecedented and unexpected scandal involving Sen. Tim Scott, who Matthews is running against, likely wouldn’t get Matthews over 50% of the votes. Matthews is also running to retain her State House seat that includes parts of Berkeley and Charleston counties.

Matthews doesn’t have a felony charge hanging over her head like Greene did, but that’s one of the few differences. Greene’s charge was downgraded to a misdemeanor and eventually dropped all together after he went through a court approved program.

An unknown Greene won the Democratic primary 12 years ago to the shock and dismay of the Democratic Party, and he put on a campaign highlighting his incompetence while attracting international attention because of his utter strangeness.

Like Greene, Matthews has made the South Carolina Democratic Party a laughingstock.

The party should have denounced Matthews months ago when she was caught on a recording asking for drug money to finance her campaign and telling a person in prison how to break campaign finance law. Instead, the party stuck by her, and now it looks foolish and ineffective because of Matthews latest sigh-inducing misstep.

Project Veritas, a right-wing organization known for secretly recording left-leaning politicians and groups, snagged Matthews in another recording.

In the recording, Matthews said of white people: “You’ve got to treat them like sh--. That’s the only way they’ll respect you.” As reported by The State’s Joe Bustos, she noted she lives in a mostly white town and her district leans Republican.

“I keep them right here, like under my thumbs. That’s where I keep them. You have to. Otherwise they get out of control like kids,” Matthews said.

In a Friday news conference, Matthews said she wasn’t speaking about white people generally but white Republican lawmakers. She said the recording was edited to be misleading.

The party’s chair, Trav Robertson, said Thursday her words are “obviously a serious distraction from other Democratic candidates running for office.”

“The time has come for the legislature to pass laws giving the executive committee of political parties the right to remove candidates from the ballot,” Robertson said Friday. “When your campaign becomes a distraction or threatens the success of your colleagues then it may be time to consider other options.”

Greene probably never strung together a phrase that would lose him so many votes in South Carolina as Matthews, but he did have a propensity for statements that made one’s brain melt with confusion. For example, he suggested in the Guardian that South Carolina could make “little action dolls” and “toys” in his likeness as a way to bolster the economy.

The foremost quality Matthew shares with Greene is naivety. Green couldn’t see he was in way over his head, nor can Matthews.

Matthews believed she could dig herself out of the hole created by her drug money and campaign law comments by issuing an apology, which amounted to a non-apology.

In trying to address her comments about white people, she called for Project Veritas to release recordings of her saying she “treat(s) these MAGA Republicans like SH--.” Does she think that comment is appropriate? Or that it will get her votes in the Palmetto State?

Matthews thinks sneaking left-leaning candidate in the Republican Party, which she called planting “sleepers,” is a plausible strategy for Democrats to make gains in South Carolina as she said in the prison recording and reaffirmed in a recent statement.

It isn’t.

She thinks she can build effective relationships as a state representative after calling other Black lawmakers “backstabbers,” as she said in the prison recording. She then stood by that in her latest comments by saying that serving in the State House has given her “a direct view of the treachery a lot of the legislators I previously had respect for are indulging in.”

She can’t.

In the same statement, Matthews said “obviously I have no biases toward a certain ethnic group” because she has criticized both Black and white people. Beyond not understanding the difference between race and ethnicity, which is annoying enough, her argument could easily be construed as her saying she doesn’t like or favor anyone. What voter does that win over? None.

Now, other Democrats, such as Democratic. gubernatorial nominee Joe Cunningham and state Representative Justin Bamberg of Bamberg County, are calling for her to step away. Who needs the support of some of the most prominent and influential Democrats in South Carolina?

If Matthews had any unselfish bone in her body, she would drop out of both the U.S. Senate and State House races to prevent further damage to her party’s image and its chances of enacting its platform.

As improbable as Alvin Greene’s political limelight was, Matthews’ chance at redeeming her campaign is even lower.