By Paul Gable
One more holiday shortened week remains for filing of candidates in the upcoming Myrtle Beach city elections.
Last week, the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce’s Grand Strand Business Alliance PAC sent out an expensive looking mailer supporting its ‘Dream Team’ – the four incumbents running for re-election.
The easiest way to win an election is to discourage challengers from filing and everybody understands now, if anyone doubted, that the Chamber, through the GSBA, will again be a strong player in the city election.
You would too if three of these incumbents steered approximately $70 million in public money into your budget.
And remember, this group still has hopes of making the one-cent Ad Tax responsible for this largesse permanent.
But, with the Ad Tax comes some baggage in the form of the Chambergate investigation by the FBI and IRS.
The disguised campaign contributions, for the 2009 elections, appear to make out a RICO pattern and, therein, lies the rub.
The RICO Act is 18 USC sec. 1864 et al.
Should an indictment or two come down during the election campaign, as we are hearing is possible, all bets are off for the Chamber, GSBA and the city incumbents.
We are also hearing of some possible candidate filings this week that could be very interesting if Chambergate explodes.
Stay tuned.
As long as none of the actual elected officials are indicted I am not sure it matters to most. What would be interesting is if they have any elected unindicted co-conspirators.
I hear the hoof beats of a few stalking horses. Will be interesting to hear any filing statements issued by challengers, or if they will just be quiet and wait. Running against the official ‘company ticket’ takes balls.