Oh looky here. Turns out the campaign of Lt. Gov. John Rodgers made “major errors” in its campaign finance filings.

Well, I’m sure Rodgers accepted full responsibility like the Real Man^TM he is — wait, what? He blamed the campaign finance reporting system?

Yep.

“The system sucks,” Rodgers told Seven Days in a moment of sober reflection.

Shall we assume that when he shoots at a deer and misses, he slams his gun on the ground and stomps it into little pieces?

To be sure, the campaign finance system could be simpler. But c’mon, you’re a major party candidate for statewide office. You raised more than $200,000. You paid an experienced politician (Rep. Casey Toof) to manage your campaign. If the two of you couldn’t figure out the system, that’s on you, dude.

Rodgers and/or Toof have also had plenty of time to figure this thing out. Way back on December 17, I reported that there was a $68,000 gap in Rodgers’ finances between reported income ($216,468) and expenses $284,588).

That was, um, seven weeks ago.

Not that they should have needed my help. What would you do if you were preparing to file an official financial document showing a discrepancy of over 30%? I think you’d try to figure out the problem and correct your figures before turning it in. On your own initiative, without pesky bloggers or an investigation by the Attorney General. But nah, I guess Rodgers and Toof just figured what the hell, submitted it, and thought nothing of it until the AGO came a-calling.

To me, the “major errors” look like an effort problem, not a system problem. As Toof explained to Seven Days, there were two major mishaps: A $6,040 expenditure on robo-calls was reported twice, and a $57,000 joint ad buy split between the Rodgers and Phil Scott campaigns was reported as a joint expense in mid-October and later reported by the Rodgers camp as a solo venture, meaning it reported spending an extra $57,000 on the ads.

I’m sorry, but that’s just sloppy work.

Then again, maybe it’s par for the course. The first line on the “About” page of Rodgers’ official state website reads thusly: “Lt. Governor John Rodgers is a father, husband, farmer, former legislator, and the 84rd Lt. Governor of Vermont.”

That’s right, “84rd.”

Math is hard.

Rodgers wouldn’t be the only prominent Republican winner to take a slipshod approach to the law. I’ve been checking on Sen. Sam Douglass’ campaign finances and there appear to be multiple problems including a failure to file a Final Report in December as required by law, and a huge discrepancy between fundraising (roughly $41K) and reported expenditures (roughly $27,500). A partially-written blogpost is on hold due to some technical problems with the Secretary of State’s brand-new campaign finance portal that prevent me from accessing key information, so stay tuned for more on that.

Vermont’s campaign finance law is far from perfect, but really now. If Rodgers has designs on succeeding Scott as governor, responsible for $9 billion in annual spending, then he ought to be able to handle a bit of complexity. And he ought to be capable of competently managing a couple hundred grand in his campaign kitty.

Then again, maybe he has trouble counting past 84.