Ignoring Republican complaints “about wasteful federal spending, Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln is reminding voters — in dollars — of what’s she’s done for Arkansas during nearly 16 years in Washington,” the AP reports.
Nearly every day, her campaign and Senate offices trumpet money that she’s helped secure for her home state — from $13,811 for the Hope Police Department to buy a new cruiser to a $102 million stimulus-funded grant for the state to pay for broadband Internet.
Defending projects typically derided as pork is a tricky stance for a vulnerable incumbent, but Lincoln has turned her re-election fight into an argument for pet projects — calling them the "great equalizer" for small, rural states like Arkansas.
"I’m going to fight hard for my state because, let me tell you, these dollars are going to go somewhere else if we don’t get them," Lincoln told The Associated Press.
Her opponent, Republican “Congressman John Boozman, also brought millions of dollars in projects to his Arkansas district before signing on to a House GOP moratorium on earmarks.”
The numbers:
Lincoln co-sponsored 91 earmarks in the 2010 budget totaling nearly $115 million, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense. Boozman sponsored or co-sponsored 31 earmarks totaling more than $30 million the same year.
(credit image – daylife/associated press)
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