As a legislator who’s both agreed and disagreed with Governor Palin, I know some of her positions are difficult to sell. Some are not. But to avoid that whole messy thing of explaining controversial positions, the spin doctors running the McCain campaign are doing what got George Bush elected. Many campaigns spin in the gray areas, where the truth isn’t clear. But the McCain campaign’s taken a page from Karl Rove, and decided to spin past the margins. They’re pitching the verifiably false as true.
During the August Republican National Convention, Alaskans heard for the first time that our Governor opposed a national symbol of federal pork, what folks in the Lower 48 call the "Bridge to Nowhere." We didn’t know that. In her 2006 Governor’s campaign, when her opponents took the risk of telling boomers these two bridges might be too expensive – candidate Palin said she supported them – and said she’d work to get more Congressional money for them.
Now the campaign has a new line, that Governor Palin "told Congress thanks, but no thanks" for this money. That’s a problem. See, she never could have said that. Congress debated our Alaska’s request for $400 million in bridge money in 2004 and 2005, before Palin was elected Governor. A national outcry against these projects, at a time when a Republican Congress was pushing pork over effective relief for Hurricane Katrina’s victims, forced Congress to re-write this earmark. Alaska ultimately got the money in 2005, but the Congressional language requiring that we spend it on these bridges was deleted. We said thank you. Governor Palin never opposed this funding. She never offered to return it when she took office in 2007.
Read more about her record on earmarks, children's health insurance, education, and pollution of salmon waters.
