Here's a great piece of reporting by the LA Times. For many years, McCain has compiled and made public a list of "objectionable earmarks," i.e. pork-barrel spending by other pols. He doesn't ask for these earmarks for his own state, and opposing them is probably the central piece of his reform agenda.
So get this:
Three times in recent years, McCain's catalogs of "objectionable" spending have included earmarks for this small Alaska town, requested by its mayor at the time -- Sarah Palin....
[snip]
...This year, Palin, who has been governor for nearly 22 months, defended earmarking as a vital part of the legislative system. "The federal budget, in its various manifestations, is incredibly important to us, and congressional earmarks are one aspect of this relationship," she wrote in a newspaper column.
Now: on the surface this isn't an issue many people care very much about. But it strikes me as fertile attack ground if the attacks aren't about earmarks but about McCain's lazy hypocrisy in choosing someone who takes the opposite position on something he has repeatedly described as very important to him.
