diff --git a/lib/ansible/module_utils/splitter.py b/lib/ansible/module_utils/splitter.py
index 152fa4782d..be7555847d 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/module_utils/splitter.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/module_utils/splitter.py
@@ -70,6 +70,7 @@ def split_args(args):
 
     # here we encode the args, so we have a uniform charset to
     # work with, and split on white space
+    args = args.strip()
     try:
         args = args.encode('utf-8')
         do_decode = True
diff --git a/lib/ansible/utils/__init__.py b/lib/ansible/utils/__init__.py
index 19f31140d7..474dd86f09 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/utils/__init__.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/utils/__init__.py
@@ -707,7 +707,7 @@ def parse_kv(args):
         for x in vargs:
             if "=" in x:
                 k, v = x.split("=",1)
-                options[k] = unquote(v)
+                options[k] = unquote(v.strip())
     return options
 
 def merge_hash(a, b):