At the annual St. Patrick’s Day breakfast in South Boston, elected officials attempt to manufacture laughs. This year was no different, with an added dollop of Democrats attempting to manufacture a scandal.

“I see that both Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum now have Secret Service with them on the campaign trail,” US Sen. Scott Brown said during his turn on the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center’s stage. “And in Santorum’s case, I think it’s the first time he’s actually ever used protection.”

Santorum, the former US senator from Pennsylvania, is an easy target. While campaigning for the Republican nomination for president, he often comes across as a twist on Mr. Rogers, pushing a theocratic Neighborhood of Make-Believe.

So it’s no surprise that Brookline’s own Conan O’Brien made a joke similar to Brown’s quip weeks earlier.

Democrats, eager for any opportunity to take Brown (R-Wrentham) down a peg, leapt at a report from the D.C.-based website Talking Points Memo pointing out the similarities between the two jokes and blasted out an e-mail to reporters calling it a “Plagiarism Scandal.”

The e-mail did not mention that Senate President Therese Murray (D-Plymouth), in a video segment her office made for the breakfast, used a joke about former Gov. Mitt Romney that can be found on numerous right-wing message boards and websites. State Rep. Nick Collins (D-South Boston) deployed a joke that has frequently appeared in in-boxes as a chain e-mail.

All of which underscores an issue Democratic and Republican Party officials deal with frequently at the national and local level: Whatever they accuse the other side of doing, it’s very likely there are examples of several of their own doing the same things.

Many of the jokes told at the breakfast focused on Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray and his car crash last year. Explanations have varied, ranging from Murray, who said he was out looking at storm damage, falling asleep at the wheel to black ice causing his car to skid. He walked onto the stage clad in a NASCAR outfit and said he had signed an executive order raising the state speed limit to 108 miles per hour – the same speed that his car had accelerated to just before the crash.

U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch played on the conventional wisdom that Treasurer Steve Grossman is a likely candidate for governor in 2014, saying, “His campaign leaked a slogan for governor just the other day: Vote for Steve Grossman: He’ll put the goober back in gubernatorial.”

Brown’s likely Democratic opponent, consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren, made her debut at the breakfast and poked fun at herself, saying that she was once a centerfold for the only magazine that would have her: Consumer Reports.

Former Rep. Wallace gets probation, some $36k in fines
Former state Rep. Brian Wallace and his former campaign treasurer reversed course on Tuesday and pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations. Superior Court Judge Frances McIntyre did not accept the guilty pleas and instead ordered the pair to pay fines over the course of a probation period of several years.

Wallace, a 62-year-old former Democrat from South Boston who represented the Fourth Suffolk District at the State House, was charged with not reporting or keeping records of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions. The Fourth Suffolk includes the Harbor Point neighborhood and a part of Uphams Corner.

Wallace, who was a representative from 2003 to 2011 and now lives in Westwood, was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine and $35,329.11 to the Office of Campaign and Political Finance. He agreed to serve five years of probation while paying at least $588 a month. His treasurer, Timothy Duross, a 51-year-old South Boston sprinkler fitter, was fined $2,000 and is on probation for three years.

The Office of Campaign and Political Finance first opened the investigation in 2009, eventually referring it to Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office after finding that Wallace and Duross were unable to document $6,345 in contributions in 2008. The two men were indicted by a grand jury in July 2011.
According to court documents, Wallace initially told OCPF officials that Duross had all the bank records and he always would review what Duross prepared for filing with OCPF. But in a separate sitdown several months later, Wallace said he trusted his treasurer and did not always look at OCPF reports that he filed.

His attorney, Bill McDermott, maintained in court documents that Wallace was “responsive” to OCPF’s requests for information, and pointed to other cases covering campaign finance violations that did not end up in the state attorney general’s hands.

“The accurate reporting of campaign contributions and expenses is critical to ensuring the integrity of our campaign finance system and preventing the misuse of campaign funds,” Coakley said in a statement. “We will continue to work with the Office of Campaign Finance to enforce these laws.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Material from State House News Service was used in this report. Check out updates to Boston’s political scene at The Lit Drop, located at dotnews.com/litdrop. Email us at newseditor@dotnews.com and follow us on Twitter: @LitDrop and @gintautasd.