Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) is being called a hypocrite when it comes to his ride. His likely Democratic opponent, Robin Carnahan, is slamming Blunt for wearing plaid and driving around the Show-Me State in a pickup truck for campaign purposes though he cruises around Washington, D.C. in a black SUV. Blunt and Carnahan are competing to fill the Senate seat left open by retiring Republican Sen. Kit Bond.
"(Blunt) loves to come to Missouri and put on a plaid shirt and drive around in a rented pickup truck and say he is looking out for us... but every opportunity he has had to stand up and be on our side, guess whose side he has taken?" Carnahan said in Sedalia during a campaign stop earlier this month.
Blunt doesn't deny that duplicity, but adds that he grew up riding in pickups.
"I've had pickups off and on throughout most of my life and in fact the only we car we had in my life when I was born was a pickup, so I'm used to riding a pickup. But I haven't bought a new shirt in a while," Blunt said when questioned by the Sedalia Democrat's Dennis Rich.
"So you're not driving in a rented pickup?" Rich asked.
"No we are, you usually don't campaign in your personal vehicle, so yes we've
been using a pickup."
Carnahan has contrasted the flannel-shirt wearing with Blunt's "too cozy" relationship with Wall Street lobbyists, pointing to his support of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program legislation in 2008 as evidence. She has also criticized Blunt, who serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, for his "more than $1 million in campaign contributions from oil companies."