MONTGOMERY, Ala. – For a first-term Democrat in a solidly Republican district, Rep. Bobby Bright did something curious on a recent weekday while talking to a Kiwanis Club breakfast: He spoke of the goodness of federal spending.

Even more curious, perhaps, is that his audience didn’t mind.

Bright, 57, a dry-witted former mayor of Montgomery, on paper looks like one of the most vulnerable Democrats in Congress: a winning margin in 2008 of just 1,700 votes, a district that John McCain won that year with 63 percent and a constituency deeply unhappy with President Obama and Democrats in Congress.

But Bright is well-liked in southeastern Alabama’s 2nd District. He is running ahead by double digits in the most recent public polls against either of the Republicans he could face in the fall.

And he’s doing so without riding the anti-government wave sweeping the nation.

In some ways, he’s practicing the opposite: rattling off the schools, bridges, unpaved roads and sewer systems that need funding; celebrating the jobs that two big local military installations bring; promoting earmarks for agricultural research. It’s a reminder that in some places, even among conservative voters, “government” and “spending” are not necessarily dirty words.

“Keep in mind, Alabama is a poor state,” Bright told a noontime crowd at Wetumpka City Hall last week, about a half-hour north of Montgomery. “I will never turn my back on resources communities need just because a political party has asked me to do so for political reasons.”

Montgomery City Council member Martha Roby, who seeks the GOP nomination to run against Bright, has assiduously avoided direct critiques of the congressman and has framed her campaign almost entirely against the policies of Washington. Roby, 33, faces tea party candidate Rick Barber in a runoff today.

Barber, 35, who gained national attention for a TV ad in which Abraham Lincoln compares current federal spending policies to slavery, has gone after Bright more directly for not supporting a repeal of the health care overhaul and for being part of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s majority.

Certainly, Bright’s popularity among conservatives is about more than earmarks.

A member of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition of House Democrats, Bright passes many of the right’s litmus tests, opposing new taxes and spending, and voting against the stimulus package, the budget, the health care bill and even the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, whose namesake is an Alabaman.

The rewards for his record include an endorsement from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Bright is critical of the Republican Party, saying the no-earmark promise that all five of Alabama’s GOP congressmen signed onto this year is little more than an election-year gimmick that amounts to a pledge against Alabama.

“That’s what really makes me mad about my colleagues,” Bright said. “They put their own partisan needs ahead of their constituents.”