In South Carolina, Republicans play hard, fall hard. Consider Ken Ard.

Even for the state that produced rabble-rouser Ben “Pitchfork” Tillman, the indictment, conviction, and resignation of South Carolina Lt. Gov. Ken Ard on Friday – yes, all in one day – was unprecedented.

On Friday, a state judge sentenced Mr. Ard, who had been lieutenant governor since November 2010, to five years’ probation, a $5,000 fine and 300 hours of community service after he pleaded guilty to a “phantom contribution” scheme intended to “create the false appearance of a groundswell of political support through fictitious or bogus campaign contributions,” in the words of Attorney General Alan Wilson, a fellow Republican.

Ard acknowledged with his plea that he gave $75,000 of his own money to individuals who then gave it back to the campaign. As part of 106 other violations brought by the state's ethics commission, Ard was also found to have used campaign funds to buy an iPad, a wide screen TV, clothes for his wife, and tickets to the Southeastern Conference championship football game.

“It is my fault that the events of the past year have taken place,” Ard said.

The Monitor's Weekly News Quiz for March 3-9, 2012

Arguably one of the most Republican states in the Union – and notably the first to secede before the Civil War – South Carolina politics have long been home to often colorful, sometimes shady characters who push the bounds of propriety, and occasionally the law. Once a solidly Democratic state, seven of its eight members of the US House of Representatives and Senate are Republicans, as are its governor and both houses of the legislature.

In recent years, Republicans have run into a string of high-profile mishaps and breaches of the law, including the admission by former Gov. Mark Sanford of an affair with an Argentine TV reporter in 2009, the conviction of a Republican state treasurer on cocaine charges in 2007, and the resignation in 2009 of a Republican state school board member who never denied allegations that she wrote online erotica on the side.

In recent years, Republicans haven't had the whole corner on shady politics in South Carolina. In 2009, Democrats nominated a near-penniless guy named Alvin Greene to compete for a senate seat, after he somehow paid his $10,000 fee to enter the race. (Mr. Greene, who was facing pornography charges, lost in the general election.)

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