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I'm surprised Ron Paul only voted against 29% of them. Anyone know why that is?

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It's likely to be more complicated than the bill being just anti-pork. Given the way this usually works there were probably some asinine riders thrown in (a la internet gambling prohibition).

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Funny though how the Republicans and Democrats differ so greatly in their voting patterns. The Democrats are in the majority now. What "asinine riders" would Paul support that would cause him to also vote for earmarks included in the same bill as the "asinine rider" you refer to?

Let's say it was something like internet gambling prohibition where that's arguably a limitation by the "nanny state" that Paul is opposed to that also included earmarks. Clearly Paul would vote against such a bill and thus he'd be shooting down the earmark. For your scenario to be valid it would have to include measures to remove power from the "nanny state" and include earmarks. I have my doubts that this is what's going on. Perhaps you can think of a better example than internet gambling to illustrate your point because I'm not getting it.

I guess it could be something like let's withdraw funding from Iraq and have a few earmarks attached to it. Doubt if that would constitute all of the votes for earmarks though. Anyway this article seems to imply that the earmark specifically was shot down.

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They are criticizing Paul for voting *against* some anti-pork bills. I was thinking that he might have agreed with the anti-pork aspect but there could have been something else in the bill that would cause him to vote "no" on the bill.

If Boro is right, then it's a bit different, but as usual, a certain amount of complication and deception is involved. That's why I really cringe when ppl just look at the title and go "zomg! I can't believe he did / didn't vote for xyz!"

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One thing that I missed that I think you're pointing out more or less is the magnitude of the pork spending involved. I read over the report on Paul's record that I posted a linky to and the amount of money involved was low by government standards. They mentioned stuff in 2007 that cost like a few houndred thousand dollars. I mean the saying about federal spending in Washingtion is a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon we're talking about real money. They're talking about stuff that isn't even 7 figures let alone 10. They also give some reasons why Paul voted the way he did.