The Mad Dash to Give Back Cash

Look out everybody! This could get dangerous. Mark Green and Scott Walker are tripping over themselves in a mad dash to give back campaign cash. From today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Republican gubernatorial hopefuls Mark Green and Scott Walker, meanwhile, have sought to one-up each other in efforts to portray themselves as the cleaner GOP alternative to challenge Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle in the November election.

U.S. Rep. Green, after prodding by opponents, is ridding his campaign of some $31,000 in donations from DeLay, plus $8,800 from donors under indictment in an Illinois corruption case and their spouses. Total donations dumped by Green: $39,800.
Green had previously set criminal conviction of a donor as his threshold test for returning political donations.

Walker, the MilwaukeeCounty executive, says his standard goes further. He'll return the $6,000 in 2004 contributions from two indicted Illinois donors and one of their spouses.

And he'll also give back the $2,500 he got from the wife of another indicted Illinois giver, P. Nicholas Hurtgen, whose firm had won lucrative bond business from the county. Hurtgen also helped with the guest list for a 2003 Walker fund-raiser in a Chicago suburb.

Walker defended the donations as appropriate, when asked about them by the newspaper in mid-2004.

Now he's scouring his donation records and may shuck even more money if the givers have any scent of scandal, Walker said. Total Walker giveback: At least $8,500.