You might have caught Nick Welsh's Angry Poodle column in this week's Independent detailing how that for each of the past four years Tom Watson, the Republican challenger to Lois Capps and an outspoken critic of government spending, has been asking Capps to secure special funding earmarks (to the tune of $4 million a pop) on behalf of the company he works for from the Department of Defense.
According to Welsh, the earmarks hypocrisy was brought to light by John Hager, the candidate in the race with Capps and Watson who has no party affiliation.
Although the Hager campaign evidently e-mailed their claim about Watson's pursuit of earmarks to a number of local media it didn't result in any stories, as far as I can tell, other than the article by Welsh. It did come up at the debate between the candidates held this past weekend, and the Daily Sound mentioned it in their coverage of that event.
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A source close to the Capps campaign tells me that back on October 13th, the day after the Hager campaign alerted local media to the issue, News-Press city editor Scott Steepleton contacted the Capps' campaign seeking the Congress Member's response. Steepleton reportedly indicated he had asked the Watson campaign for a response to Hager's claims as well.
Having every motive to do so, the Capps campaign promptly got back to Steepleton but never heard anything further from him or anyone else at the paper.
Meanwhile, the Indy ran the story that pointed out that Watson's opposition to government spending seems to depend on whose ox is being gored.
To date, so far as I can tell, no story on this subject has appeared in the News-Press.
Maybe they're still waiting for a response from Watson?
© 2010 by Craig Smith and www.craigsmithsblog.com
