"Voters may be fed up with Congressional Pork"

Pork is the mother's milk of incumbency:

Is America losing its taste for bacon?

When it comes to the congressional variety, members of the powerful appropriations committees are finding that holding the nation's purse strings — and the power the positions afford in doling out pork-barrel projects back home — are no guarantee these days for re-election.

Six of the 13 members of the Senate Appropriations Committee up for re-election this year have announced they'll retire or have lost a primary challenge. A seventh, Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Democrat, is trailing challenger Rep. Joe Sestak in the polls heading to Tuesday's primary. The committee has 30 total members.

...A public backlash against pet projects, often called earmarks, wasn't the sole reason that forced these lawmakers from office. But unlike past election seasons, sitting on an appropriations committee isn't enough to save a lawmaker's political skin.

"Being on the appropriations committees isn't the advantage it was in past election cycles, in part because there's an anti-incumbent attitude," said David Wasserman, who covers House races for the Cook Political Report. "But it's probably never the single reason an incumbent falls short."

The anti-earmark wave seems to have has caught many lawmakers off guard on Capitol Hill, where membership to the House and Senate "approps" committees is still considered a desirable and powerful privilege.

"They expect to be thanked" for pet projects back home, said Mike Connolly, a spokesman with the Club for Growth, a conservative group that pushes for limited government spending. But "the American people are figuring out that, while they're getting a little bit for their state, they also know that they're paying for the stuff in the other 49 [states], too."