This is how you rebuild your public image among conservatives.
The Hill reports this morning that Sen. Hillary Clinton asked for 26 earmarks in the defense authorization bill totalling nearly $150M dollars. That's more than every other senator except for the chairman of the committee.
The RNC quickly sent around a "Research Memo" calling Clinton the "President of Pork."
And now, McCain plans to lambaste Clinton by name. He's holding a press conference at 2:30pm ET in California.
This is one of those non-zero sum political tactics. It's hard to envision how HRC is hurt by this in both the primary and the general. And it's easy to imagine how McCain earns some solid media coverage for his decision to take her on.
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Well, that's all well and good, but does this prove that the way to rebuild your image among conservatives and earn solid media coverage is to thump the table about peripheral distractions?
I mean, $150m in the defense authorization bill is, more or less, nothing.
And Matt ties together a few posts here about how the whole anti-earmarks crusade is an attempt to wave away the difficult, substantive decisions in budgeting.
Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | June 13, 2007 1:23 PM