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Record Contradicts Palin's 'Bridge' Claims
WSJ ^ | September 9, 2008 | ELIZABETH HOLMES and LAURA MECKLER

Posted on 09/08/2008 3:57:27 PM PDT by Fred

Despite significant evidence to the contrary, the McCain campaign continues to assert that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told the federal government "thanks but no thanks" to the now-famous bridge to an island in her home state.

The McCain campaign released a television advertisement1 Monday morning titled "Original Mavericks." The narrator of the 30-second spot boasts about the pair: "He fights pork-barrel spending. She stopped the Bridge to Nowhere."

Gov. Palin, who John McCain named as his running mate less than two weeks ago, quickly adopted a stump line bragging about her opposition to the pork-barrel project Sen. McCain routinely decries. Republican presidential candidate John McCain (right) and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, at a campaign rally in Lee's Summit, Mo.

But Gov. Palin's claim comes with a serious caveat. She endorsed the multimillion dollar project during her gubernatorial race in 2006. And while she did take part in stopping the project after it became a national scandal, she did not return the federal money. She just allocated it elsewhere.

"We need to come to the defense of Southeast Alaska when proposals are on the table like the bridge," Gov. Palin said in August 2006, according to the local newspaper, "and not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that's so negative." The bridge would have linked Ketchikan to the airport on Gravina Island. Travelers from Ketchikan (pop. 7,500) now rely on ferries.

A year ago, the governor issued a press release2 that the money for the project was being "redirected."

"Ketchikan desires a better way to reach the airport, but the $398 million bridge is not the answer," she said. "Despite the work of our

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Politics/Elections; US: Alaska
KEYWORDS: biden; bridgetonowhere; mccain; mccainpalin; obama; palin; palinrecord
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1 posted on 09/08/2008 3:57:28 PM PDT by Fred
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To: Fred

Let it go. She killed it, as an official act as Governor.


2 posted on 09/08/2008 3:59:07 PM PDT by Blueflag (Res ipsa loquitur)
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To: Fred

Gee, even the Democrats earlier this year credited Palin with stopping the bridge, then they went and scrubbed any mention of it...but others have screen shots of their web sites congragulating her on stopping it.


3 posted on 09/08/2008 3:59:34 PM PDT by HD1200
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To: Fred

If Team McCain aren’t willing to engage this then they deserve to lose... this is embarrassing. They have a good explanation but they’re doing nothing...


4 posted on 09/08/2008 4:02:00 PM PDT by bahblahbah (http://explorations.chasrmartin.com/2008/09/06/palin-rumors/)
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To: HD1200
Freeper post on bridge to nowhere
Dems Blame Palin for no bridge to nowhere
5 posted on 09/08/2008 4:02:43 PM PDT by Fred (The Democrat Party is the Nadir of Nihilism)
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To: Blueflag
In a world of limitless demand and limited resources, hard decisions and compromises and trade-offs have to be made.

What may have seemed like a good idea when she was first running for office may have started to stink as she looked into the financial and logistic details of the issue more deeply. Therefore, she changed her mind and exercised the executive power entrusted to her by the people of Alaska.

No story.

Obama would have voted "Present" on the bridge. The money would have been siphoned off by consultants and community organizers, and the bridge would never have been built regardless.

-ccm

6 posted on 09/08/2008 4:03:18 PM PDT by ccmay (Too much Law; not enough Order.)
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To: Fred
She still killed the bridge.

The funds, however, were NOT redirected by Congress. In fact, a proposal to transfer the funds for Alaska to Louisiana to subsidize FEMA credit card abusers was defeated and the funds continued to be credited to Alaska and they were used in other projects there.

(NOTE: I added the "credit card abusers", but the legislation would have sent Alaska's "share" to Louisiana and once there history has shown time and again they would have been stolen).

7 posted on 09/08/2008 4:04:18 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Fred

The bridge to nowhere controversy is a test of Team McCain’s ability to drive the right narrative. If they fail it, they will lose. It’s embarrassing, this should have been taken care of a long time ago.


8 posted on 09/08/2008 4:05:15 PM PDT by bahblahbah (http://explorations.chasrmartin.com/2008/09/06/palin-rumors/)
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To: bahblahbah
I will engage for them

Obama is complaining about earmarks??? I got your earmarks right here

Senator Barack Obama on Thursday released a list of $740 million in earmarked spending requests that he had made over the last three years, and his campaign challenged Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to do the same.
9 posted on 09/08/2008 4:05:30 PM PDT by Fred (The Democrat Party is the Nadir of Nihilism)
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To: ccmay
Part of the problem was that Alaska's Senators (and one Representative) had not first gotten the allocation under the classification of "Mass Transit".

Now there would have been the magic words. That'd slipped right under the noses of the MSM pundits.

Or, maybe they'd gotten the bridge if they'd called it "The Harvey Milk Memorial".

10 posted on 09/08/2008 4:07:49 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: ccmay

Obama voted FOR the bridge.


11 posted on 09/08/2008 4:08:34 PM PDT by jokyfo ("OBAMA" is Arabic for "CIPHER" and Farsi for "VACUUM")
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To: jokyfo
Obama voted FOR the bridge.

So did Plugs...

12 posted on 09/08/2008 4:10:03 PM PDT by COBOL2Java (Obama wants to raise taxes and kill babies; Palin wants to raise babies and kill taxes.)
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To: Fred

This is a very minor point of semantics and procedure and means very little in the scheme of things.

However, they will try to use it to destroy her credibility, regardless of the truth.


13 posted on 09/08/2008 4:11:02 PM PDT by Wiseghy ("You want to break this army? Then break your word to it.")
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To: Fred

Doggone, he could have gotten 2 and a half bridges to Gravina Island for that money, and then Ketchikan would never suffer the tie-ups that so plagued the Chesapeake Bay Bridge between Annapolis and Senator Biden for so many years (until he got some earmarks to build another span).


14 posted on 09/08/2008 4:11:26 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Fred

Incoming fire from the Obama media.


15 posted on 09/08/2008 4:11:49 PM PDT by screaminsunshine
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To: bahblahbah
The bridge to nowhere controversy is a test of Team McCain’s ability to drive the right narrative. If they fail it, they will lose. It’s embarrassing, this should have been taken care of a long time ago.

You embarrass too easily. Gov. Palin turned against the bridge to nowhere when her state's two senators, fellow GOPers, were still all for it. As new Governor of a small population state, she wasn't in a position to turn away federal funds and single-handedly change the system. A powerful Senator is. Sen. McCain took that opportunity, Sens. Obama and Biden didn't.

Give the McCain-Palin team time to make their case. Obama is going to hang himself with this issue.
16 posted on 09/08/2008 4:13:30 PM PDT by kenavi (John McCain, you're no Bob Dole. Sarah Palin, you're no Dan Quayle.)
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To: Fred

While as a candidate for governor she supported the bridhe, she did stop the project as a governor.


17 posted on 09/08/2008 4:13:51 PM PDT by paudio (Nobody cried 'racism' when Swann, Blackwell, and Steele lost to white guys in 2006)
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To: Fred

“And while she did take part in stopping the project after it became a national scandal, she did not return the federal money...”

So in other words, she DID kill the bridge to nowhere. Why can’t these libs admit it? Yeah, of course she kept the money, but she never claimed she did not, and she would have been a sorry-ass excuse for a governor to send the money back to Washington, wouldn’t she?


18 posted on 09/08/2008 4:15:51 PM PDT by Brilliant
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To: bahblahbah
If Team McCain aren’t willing to engage this then they deserve to lose... this is embarrassing. They have a good explanation but they’re doing nothing...

The McCain campaign is not stupid. The bridge issue has been a focus since her speech, and they knew it. The fact that they even use it again today in the ad makes me think they're into something... As a bait, although I'm not sure what...

19 posted on 09/08/2008 4:17:16 PM PDT by paudio (Nobody cried 'racism' when Swann, Blackwell, and Steele lost to white guys in 2006)
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To: Blueflag

So the Bridge to Nowhere was built eh? Must’ve been invisible materials


20 posted on 09/08/2008 4:18:18 PM PDT by DeLaine (It's not about what they say, it's about what they do)
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