Don't Worry: Ed Martin Says He's Only Incompetent At Filing Financial Reports for the House

Political observers were rather worried about Ed Martin's complete inability to accurately file routine financial reports for runs at office:

Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Ed Martin's revised campaign-finance filing for his defunct congressional campaign has prompted new questions about his initial faulty report, which listed more than $50,000 in post-election contributions that actually were made prior to the election.

But don't worry, says Martin, that was only for his run for Congress, and doesn't have anything to do with his senate race:

In any case, Martin underscored that the report and the errant contribution dates dealt with his congressional campaign -- not his new bid for the U.S. Senate. A separate Senate campaign committee and bank account are being set up, he said.

I'm really glad he underscored that because...well...OK, actually I have no idea why he underscored that. It still seems just as pathetic and doesn't do anything to get him off the hook for remarkable incompetence. His excuse is "the standard defection of campaign workers after Nov. 2." But if that were a good excuse, shouldn't we have seen roughly 435 X 2 FEC reports that were just as disastrous as his?

Ed Martin's Financial Disclosure Flub: Part of a Pattern

Sean at FiredUp Missouri linked to a story in the Hill that caught Ed Martin falsely reporting having nearly $200,000 in the bank in his FEC report. Jake Wagman at the Post-Dispatch of course simply regurgitated Martin's claim that it was a "computer error," but Sean has presented some good reasons for thinking that even Ed Martin's amended comments are suspicious, especially considering that he now claims he had no activity in Q4 according to PoliticMo.

Of course, this isn't exactly new territory for Martin. During his failed bid for Congress, he filed his financial disclosure forms 300 days late because he was "really busy." Sure is interesting how much difficulty Ed Martin has with basic things like reporting his finances, and how it's always someone else's fault.