Party Crasher?

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What happens when the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate shows up uninvited to a Greenville County GOP executive committee meeting?

Well, let’s just say, it ain’t pretty…

Last night, Elonkey received this YouTube video allegedly showing Greenville GOP state executive committeeman assaulting a supporter in the moments following Monday night’s meeting.

, a Conley supporter and Cherokee County Republican, captured footage of his tussle with Wavle over printed materials criticizing Senator .

According to Frank, after the committee meeting ended, he placed copies of articles from The American Conservative and The American Spectator in the lobby for people to pick up on their way out. Apparently, Wavle didn’t care for The Worst Republican Senator literature and began grabbing the papers from Frank’s hand and pushing him before storming out the door with a fistful of papers.

It seems his exchange with Mr. Wavle capped off an exciting evening for Mr. Frank, who was twice ruled out of order during the committee meeting for offering up loving remarks about our Senior Senator. Among my favorites, “Even though Lindsey Graham won the Primary, we still have a conservative who we can vote for! That conservative is Bob Conley!” (Yeah, I’m sure that went over well.)

As for the man at the center of Monday night’s controversy, Bob Conley reportedly sat quietly at the back of the meeting – having requested and been denied time to speak at the GOP event.

Perhaps they figured that the self-described Ron Paul Democrat would be well-received in the only county Graham lost during the June GOP primary. After all, Graham’s stances on immigration reform have incurred the wrath of many in the Upstate and Conley prides himself on being an ardent supporter of tighter borders.

However, while Conley attempts to lure disaffected Republicans by billing himself as the true conservative alternative to Graham, he forgets one important thing – Like it or not, Conley is a card-carrying member of the Democratic Party, and members of Team Blue (no matter how red-blooded they may be) never, ever crash Reds-only events. It’s just not done.

Rather than quietly building support among disaffected Republicans, Conley’s impromptu visit to the Greenville County GOP likely did more harm than good. By dropping in unexpectedly, he put his supporters in an uncomfortable position vis-à-vis their fellow Party members and actually forced the Greenville GOP to defend Graham and publicly declare their support for the Senator.

Moreover, the stunt can only serve to further alienate Conley from his Democratic base, without which he can’t win in the fall. Even if every S.C. voter who supported Witherspoon in the primary decides to back Conley, it won’t matter if pissed-off Democrats refuse to back him.

Conley would do well to remember the cardinal rule of politics. – always secure your base first. Billing yourself as a Yellow Dog is one thing, but positioning yourself to the far right of your Republican opponent is likely to run off as many, if not more, votes than it earns. Perhaps rather than continuing on the conservative talk radio circuit and crashing GOP meetings, Mr. Conley might want to spend a little more time courting the voters he’ll need most in November.…He could start by dropping in on the Greenville County Democratic Party — I hear he still hasn’t visited those nice folks yet.