Hunter vs. McCain

The chatter continues that Congressman Duncan Hunter's appearance, at Chairman Pullen's request, at the AZGOP Trunk and Tusk dinner is a slap at McCain and other Presidential aspirants after Pullen had publicly declared he would be neutral in the race for the nomination.

Obviously, many of the "anti-McCain" forces are backing Hunter - as evidenced by the manufactured "straw poll" at the Maricopa County GOP meeting a few weeks ago.

What many folks probably don't know, is that there has been a long-term feud between Hunter and Senator McCain on the issue of "pork-barrell" spending. To wit, McCain hates it, and Hunter uses it... proudly.

Anyone who wants to read the inside story about the types of activities that landed Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham in jail, just go here: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20051204-9999-1n4adcs.html

What you'll find is that Duncan Hunter has been doing a lot of the same type of stuff. Here is an excerpt from the article:

By then, the document conversion program was drawing fire from Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who included it on a list of $5.5 billion "objectionable" earmarks that Congress had tacked onto the military budget.
In July 1997, McCain accused the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House National Security Committee, where both Hunter and Cunningham sat, of "virtually ignoring the request of the Pentagon and impeding the military's ability to channel resources where they are most needed."
McCain said that "with military training exercises continuing to be cut, backlogs in aircraft and ship maintenance, flying hour shortfalls, military health care underfunded by $600 million, and 11,787 service members reportedly on food stamps," Congress should not be funding "a plethora of programs not requested by the Defense Department."
McCain was largely ignored. Three months later, Congress earmarked $20 million for document conversion systems. The earmarks hit $25 million the next year, including ADCS' biggest project: a $9.7 million contract to digitize documents in the Panama Canal Zone, which was to be handed to Panama in 1999.

The irony is that those supporting Hunter claim to be those who want to get the party back to the basics: accountability, ethics, less spending, etc. What they have done, however, is let their hatred of McCain severely cloud their view of who Duncan Hunter really is - an unapologetic pork spender who engages in questionable requests of the behalf of friends and donors. Isn't that part of why Republicans lost the majority?