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Cochran was particularly vulnerable is not because he had been in senate for so long and in congress for so long but because he was an old school appropriator that he never backed down from defending the fact that ear marks were a good thing. never voted for any of those ear mark bands that went forward and he sort of stayed stubborn on that issue. >> another side that hasn't been explored too much. mississippi, i think nine straight presidential elections mississippi has voted for a republican. i think 1972 would be the last time mississippi elected a democrat to the u.s. senate. you do not t...

President obama, also to president clinton, president bush that would never happen back in the day of lyndon johnson. so if you look at what's happening now, take for instance newtown. an event that happens along with the bombings in birmingham and all the things that could push people to do the right thing. there was a human cry in the country, do something about this. the president gets out there and makes the moral case. the moral case was not enough because the opposition to what the president and the majority of the country wanted to do was much stronger. and i would say that one of the t...

Contains dozens of policy writers that can only be scribed as ear marks." what do you say to him? >> look, i have a lot of respect, these are both my friends, but in this case i think they are wrong. first of all, you know, this is less money than we spent last year. it's four years in a row that we have actually cut spending, and president obama will have effectively, you know, when you count inflation in, about 10% less to spend than president bush had in his last year. congress is continuing to try and dress the deficit. did we get everything we want? no, we did not. that's going to be the ...

And that's because everything here at the ohmstead locks and dams is on a grand scale, from the floating walls to the construction equipment to the cost. >> but then, republicans started getting squirmy about ear marks. here's mcconnell in 2010. >> and what i've concluded is that on the issue of congressional ear marks, as the leader of my party in the senate, i have to lead first by example. nearly every day that the senate's been in session for the past two years, i've come down to this very spot and said that democrats were ignoring the wishes of the american people. when it comes to earmar...

Government waste and the debt and deficit. and so the senate conservative fund, by calling it the kentucky kickback, immediately fingered the culprit, mitch mcconnell, that dastardly barren of the senate is trying to knock off with a primary challenge to his right. and pinning it on mcconnell was not a ridiculous assumption. here's mitch mcconnell in 2009, visiting the ohmstead locks and dam project. mcconnell has secured earmarks for the project before, hundreds of millions of dollars, up to 2009. >> our goal would be to try to meet the annual challenges and to keep this project as close to o...