Doug Mataconis · · 1 comment

Kentucky’s Senate moved quickly yesterday to dispute claims that he had begun to backtrack on his campaign pledge to forego earmarks:

Kentucky’s incoming Senator is pushing back hard on critics who claim he has sold out when it comes to earmarks. Republican Rand Paul told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer today that concerns that he backed away from his pledge to refuse federally-funded pet projects, a key tenet of his tea party-fueled campaign, just aren’t warranted.

“I won’t use earmarks as a senator,” Paul told Blitzer. As he had on the campaign trail, Paul said earmarking “shows some of the abuse of Washington” and promised he won’t be among the Senators who participate in the process. But that doesn’t mean he won’t try to get money for Kentucky through the open appropriations process.

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Paul dismissed the article. In a flashback to the campaign trail — when Paul’s early national media appearances haunted him for months — the Sen.-elect said the Journal had misquoted him and demanded a correction.”We called him and asked him to correct that,” Paul said of Journal scribe Matthew Kaminski, who conducted the interview. “I never, ever said earmark.”