By Paul Gable
Negative campaigning hit the special primary race for District 107 yesterday with a hit piece on Mark McBride sent by a phony group with no regard for South Carolina election laws.
The poorly designed and messaged mail piece looked like an attempt by rank amateurs to smear McBride with sensationalist messaging such as “evidence” on the “real Mark McBride” and the virtually required “fake news” moniker, while providing physical proof that the only fakes were the blithering idiots who designed and funded the piece.
South Carolina law requires only two statements on political mail pieces to be accurate and truthful – the name and address of the sender.
The hit piece on McBride failed in both statements.
The purported sending organization, “Americans United for Values”, is not registered with the South Carolina Secretary of State and the address of the sender is a vacant storefront in Surfside Beach.
Can’t get any more fake than that.
And it’s not the first time that some made-up group has attacked McBride with the same or similar messaging in the last 15 years.
Negative hit pieces are almost a requirement in South Carolina politics since the rise of the late Lee Atwater 40 or so years ago. At least Atwater was original and sometimes comical in his messaging – I’m thinking of “jumper cables” here.
Why waste money on negative mailers filled with slanted and false messaging? Because they can be effective with the voter who is not familiar with the politics involved. And there are plenty of relatively new voters, especially in the Market Common area, which is the area that may decide this election.
In addition, it has been a favorite tactic of the Myrtle Beach cabal over the last 15 or so years in its ongoing attempts to direct public dollars into preferred projects and issues, such as the tourism development fee that uses tax dollars to fund advertising for private properties, with the help of political officeholders it helped elect.
Why spend corporate dollars to advertise your property when you can get your government lackeys to spend tax dollars instead?
That is, of course, the real issue the cabal has with McBride. He wants to spend tax dollars on public safety rather than advertising for private properties.
In a truly conservative area, such a suggestion as McBride’s would be a no brainer.
However, in Myrtle Beach, the self-proclaimed conservative politicians and their supporters see a public dole as their right and will do anything to keep it flowing to their personal benefit.
Expect more of the same attacks McBride with both mail pieces and television ads paid for by bogus entities in these closing days of the special primary election campaign. The cabal has a lot to lose and the needs of average citizens don’t matter.
Speak Up…