If you're interested in a portrait of a campaign in a state of denial, read Peggy Lowe's post about the Hoa Van Tran campaign's "response" to the details of their hinkiness.

Peggy relays the response of Hoa campaign manager Edgardo Reynoso:

Responding to the many people out there who have, um, raised concerns and filed complaints about his campaign finance reports, Reynoso said he is taking it very seriously and that he has retained a professional treasurer.

Who's this "professional treasurer"? That's a positive development, if true, but the Hoa campaign didn't have to wait to hire a professional treasurer in order to amend their report to include the omissions that been detailed here and on TheLiberalOC.com for quite some time now.

"It's not because we're doing it on purpose. That's ridiculous," Reynoso said. "It's more of the campaign gaining speed."

Reynoso said that if amendments must be made to the report, it will be done in a "very short period of time."

So which is it? On one hand, Reynoso says they didn't commit the violations on purpose, and then talks about those violations as if there's a question they need to be rectified.

He blamed the problems on a former campaign staffer -- who he refused to identify -- and questioned her loyalty to the Democrats and to "Democratic values."

That's a good one: being a good party activist means turning a blind eye to illegalities and boorish -- to put it politely -- behavior.

"It's really inappropriate on her part to undermine a campaign she was working on," Reynoso said.

Really? Most people would call it commendable of her to blow the whistle on the sleaziness that has taken hold of Hoa's campaign operations. And exactly what kind of loyalty should she feel toward a campaign that stiffed her promised compensation (not very Democratic) and toward a campaign manager who created what is known as a "hostile working environment."

Edgardo Reynoso's response is a precise mirror of what former Hoa staffers describe as his M.O.: deny responsibility and point the finger at others while pretending there are no problems.

At the end of the day, however, this lands on Hoa Van Tran's shoulders because he knows it is happening and allows it to continue.