Pay to Play

Here’s a case you’ll hope isn’t too little, too late:

Republicans are airing a television ad in Reno this week attacking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as a “super-spending partisan.”

The early ad buy by the National Republican Senatorial Committee is the latest indication that the GOP views Reid, D-Nev., as a top target as he seeks re-election to a fifth term in 2010.

Committee spokesman Brian Walsh declined to say how much money the committee was spending to air the ad. It accuses Reid of contributing campaign money for Democratic attack ads against Republicans who supported government bailouts last year—but now supporting big new expenditures himself.

“And now he wants a trillion more dollars in new spending? A trillion dollars?” the ad’s announcer says over an image of a hammer smashing a piggy bank. “Tell Harry Reid to stop wasting our hard-earned money.”

The problem of course is that ever since about 1998, the Republicans haven’t had a leg to stand on when it comes to spending restraint. If they’re going to sounds ballsy on the radio, they’d better act ballsy in Congress — otherwise voters will gladly take goodies from non-hypocrites who don’t harangue them, instead of from hypocrites who do.