Hillary Clinton might be behind in the presidential race when it comes to the delegate tally, but she's ahead in another count: earmarks.

At nearly $2.3 billion, Clinton actually is leading the whole Senate with her dollar request for special projects for the 2009 fiscal year, The Hill newspaper reports.

The earmark deadline passed Friday, and she is the only one of the three presidential candidates to put in pork-barrel requests. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has made anti-earmark stance a campaign platform, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has cast off earmarking this year, although since 2004 he has requested about $740 million, The Hill said.

Last year, Clinton actually secured about $342 million in earmarks, although the junior senator from New York has not released the amount of money in earmarks she has requested.

This time around, Clinton wants money for New York homeland security grants ($875 million between state and urban programs), interoperable radios ($400 million), monitoring health of those affected by the World Trade center collapse ($231 million), and plenty of others.

Whether all her requests will come through has yet to be determined. The fiscal year ends Sept. 30, but the appropriations process has gone long past then in recent years before the final budget was hammered out.

The Hill reports that word on Capitol Hill is that Clinton could be hedging her bets in case she doesn't win the presidential nomination, because she'll need some political capital to keep her seat on down the road when her six-year Senate term is up in four years.

Click here for the full report from The Hill.