Alvin Greene: 5 Burning Questions About the Surprise S.C. Senate Candidate, Answered

In yesterday's South Carolina primary a strange thing happened: Alvin Greene, an unemployed veteran nobody had ever heard of, won the right to face Republican incumbent Senator Jim DeMint as the Democratic candidate in the general election.

But as the confetti begins to settle, a number of questions have immediately been raised about this stealthy and unorthodox candidate -- a man with no money, no website, no advertising budget.

1. How did he raise the $10,400 filing fee to enter the Democratic race?

Greene has told reporters that he saved the money while serving in the U.S. Air Force in South Korea, though not everyone's buying it. He was discharged in August of 2009, a military spokesman told Politics Daily's David Wood.

2. Why would a guy who allegedly faces a felony charge for showing obscene Internet pictures to a female college student run for political office?

Greene was picked up in November on the obscenity charge. If convicted, he faces the prospect of five years in jail. Which could make showing up to his Senate job sort of complicated.

3. Why didn't Greene, you know, campaign?

Carol Fowler, the Democratic Party Chairwoman in South Carolina says that she is not aware of Greene appearing at so much as a single campaign rally or event.

4. Is Greene a GOP plant, meant to embarrass Democrats?

As Politico's Ben Smith notes, the Republican party in South Carolina has a history of recruiting less than viable candidates to run as Democrats. In an interview with Mother Jones, however, Greene professes that the idea to run was his alone. "No, no--no one approached me," Greene told the magazine. "This is my decision."

5. Does he have any hope of beating Jim DeMint in the fall?

This is South Carolina, where strange things seem to happen on a regular basis. But not that strange.