Far as as pathetic excuses go, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has already won the day, but Ohio treasurer Josh Mandel looks like a sure bet for second place.
While most other recipients of Earl Holt's white supremacist cash have decided to either return the money or donate an equal amount to charity, Josh Mandel is keeping his for an unfathomably asinine reason.
Mandel's treasury from that campaign still has $49,694 in the bank, according to its April report to the Federal Election Commission.
But!
But Mandel, who manages Ohio's public funds, appears to view this as a matter of strict accounting for specific sums at specific times: When Holt's money came in, it was spent almost immediately on Mandel's Senate campaign. The surplus left after the election came from other donations.
Even if you accept the idea that Mandel's campaign spent money in the exact amounts that it was donated, a preposterous idea, how is that an adequate excuse?
From another point of view, this would seemingly behoove Mandel to donate an equal amount to a charity of his choice to make amends for his intimately detailed, itemized expenditure funded by a white supremacist's blood money.
If Mandel itemized every single donation and its associated expenditure in the manner he purports, can he tell us what he spent Earl Holt's donation on?