A Setback for Sonny

It seems Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue was found guilty of ethics violations by the State Ethics Commission.

Gov. Sonny Perdue, who has championed ethics reform legislation for three years, Friday became Georgia's first governor fined by the State Ethics Commission for campaign violations.

As part of a consent order approved by the State Ethics Commission, the Republican governor agreed to pay a $1,900 fine and repay $18,000 in excess campaign contributions to settle a host of complaints lodged against him by the Democratic Party of Georgia.

Granted, the Governor's penalty is simply a fine (and a small one at that), you can be assured that the Georgia Democratic Party will try to use this to their advantage with the upcoming gubinatorial election. With that in mind, Republican spin doctors have been busy at work:

Randy Evans, a Republican attorney who represented Perdue and his campaign, said the commission dismissed hundreds of allegations made by the Democrats against the governor and his staff. And some of the violations Perdue acknowledged having committed were "technical," he said.

"This was a huge defeat for the Democrats," Evans said. "They started alleging hundreds and thousands of violations, suggesting that there would be hefty fines, tens of thousands of dollars."

I don't know what's in the Kool-Aid he's been drinking, but I seriously don't know how a Republican governor's admission of wrongdoing is a "huge defeat for the Democrats."