This is why the earmark thing got so much traction in the primary...

I don't know that Kay ever really "got it" even in her loss why earmarks are so unpopular right now... and why her consistent votes against earmark moratoria were so devastating to her campaign. This year House Republicans put a self imposed moratorium on earmarks, and it is actually yielding results (link). Excerpt follows...

Self-imposed Republican moratorium leads to drop in 2011 earmark spending

By Walter Alarkon - 08/01/10 03:18 PM ET

Earmarks are way down in the 2011 spending bills being drafted in the House, thanks to new restrictions that lawmakers imposed on themselves.

The amount of earmarked money is down by roughly 40 percent in three 2011 appropriations bills in the House compared to last year’s bills, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense.

What Kay never seemed to understand was that yes people do ultimately like their own pork... they like it when their peeps bring home the bacon... but there has been a fundamental shift in the understanding of how this works. People in Texas understand that other states get far more per capita than Texas gets... Texas sends more than we get back...

Every time Kay voted against earmark reform and then tried to defend this, she walked a little bit further right into that buzz saw... people are sick of the spending, and they are willing to forego their own pork projects if it means other people will have to forego them too... because really the value of your own pork projects is pretty low compared to the waste in everyone else's pork projects... sure you might get a ten million dollar museum every few years... but the real cost to you is more like 300 million or a billion... it is just not worth it...

People are wising up... there is no such thing as free money... if Republicans continue this successfully they will regain their popularity from the voters who are still skeptical about whether Republicans are really the party of fiscal conservatives...