Bookman Larry Woods: is he a better shell man?

Bob Clement's main Bookman, Larry Woods, has shown himself to be quite apt at the streetwise shell game of working around campaign finance restrictions.
Although the Clement campaign has given back the $40 K in Woods "PAC's to funnel monies to Clement", only $10,000 has been given back to the donors, leaving Woods in control of the pea. He intended to misdirect the public by placing it under another shell, moving it to several different locations, and the monies would aid Clement in some other obtuse way. Probably financing some hit commercials slamming one of the other candidate's love of puppies, ability to kiss babies, or some other death nail accusation.
Larry Woods has shown himself to be a master shell man, who unfortunately was caught and outed by the City Paper.
In the good old days, the Nashville media (sans the Nashville Banner’s tenure) would have ignored this type of Democratic party shenanigans, which would have been known by everyone except the Nashville voter.

The shell game (also known as Thimblerig, Three shells and a pea, the old army game) is portrayed as a gambling game, but in reality, when a wager for money is made, it is an illegal confidence trick used to perpetrate fraud. In bunko slang, this famous swindle is referred to as a short-con because it is quick and easy to pull off.
The game requires three shells (thimbles, walnut shells, bottle caps, and even match boxes have been used), and a small, soft round ball, about the size of a pea, and often referred to as such. It can be played on almost any flat surface, but on the streets it is often seen played on a mat lying on the ground, or on a cardboard box. The person perpetrating the swindle (called the thimblerigger, operator, or shell man) begins the game by placing the pea under one of the shells, then quickly shuffles the shells around. Once done shuffling, the operator takes bets from his audience on the location of the pea. The audience is told that if a player bets and guesses correctly, the player will win back double his bet (that is, he will double his money); otherwise he/she loses the money. However, in the hands of a skilled operator, it is not possible for the game to be won, unless the operator wants the player to win.

The City Paper reports....Clement campaign contributions still in PAC coffers

The majority of $40,100 in campaign contributions mayoral candidate Bob Clement said he would return this summer remains in the coffers of several political action committees organized by his campaign chairman’s law firm — the same committees that contributed to Clement’s campaign in the first place.

The Clement campaign issued a statement in July saying it would return the PAC contributions, citing a series of City Paper articles that called into question whether the PACs were controlled by the campaign and whether the contributions were intended to circumvent state campaign finance limits on individual donors.

Once the PACs received the money back from Clement’s campaign, they returned only $10,000 in total to the original donors, a newspaper survey of campaign finance disclosures from the PACs show. In addition, some of the original PACs tied to Larry Woods that gave to the Clement campaign have since shuffled thousands of dollars to other PACs affiliated with Woods that were not involved in the original $40,100 in contributions to Clement.

Some of the contributors to the PACs — special-interest fundraising organizations established to raise dollars for political causes — told the newspaper last year they intended their $5,000 PAC donations to be directed toward the Clement mayoral campaign. State finance law prohibits individuals from giving more than $1,000 to a single political campaign, although it allows $5,000 contributions to individual PACs. PACs, in turn, can give substantially more to candidates.

Woods, the Clement campaign chairman who is treasurer or chairman of several of the education-related PACs, told the City Paper Tuesday only two donors to the PACs wanted their money returned. Woods was again emphatic, as he was last summer, that the PACs are not connected to the Clement campaign.

“There’s absolutely no involvement of those PACs on any level in the Clement campaign. They have not given us a dime and are not going to give us a dime,” Woods said.

“The Clement campaign returned all $40,100 to the donors — the donors were the PACs, as you reported at the time … and we returned every penny of that money to the PACs. … I was personally involved in a few of them. The PACs then contacted their donors to give the option of whether they wanted their money returned.”