he whined about how having access to billions of pork dollars "corrupts" politicians. Um, it corrupts you only if you let it. Apparently the American people are at fault for not electing people of more noble character, people with a backbone who could resist the temptations of all that money.
Joe Biden. 36 years. Big pork guy. Maximum net worth: $277,997.
Robert Byrd. Oldest member and most notorious pork barrel spender in the Senate. Maximum net worth: $350,000.
Pork barrel spending usually isn't about the person asking for it so much as it is about the place that they serve. Nothing wrong with it as long as it's transparent. Pork barrel spending creates jobs, enhances communities, fixes roads and bridges. Each project should be better evaluated and kept in the open, but it's not something that needs to be stopped.
I think McCain would have had it be so much different, if he was truly in control of his own run for office.
In an odd way, I think that's what made him pick Palin. It was him making a stand and refusing to go with the safe candidates chosen for him. Unfortunately, it appears as if it will blow up in his face. It's so sad. Had he won in 2000, we'd probably be a whole lot better off. But he was right for 2000, not now.
Of course, we all gotta give Obama some damn credit. If we were asked in 2004 who would be running in 2008, we ALL would have said it'd be Hillary running against McCain. We might not have been certain it would have been McCain, but we would have been certain it would be Hillary. Obama is on the verge of pulling off two of the biggest upsets in political history.