Getting to Know Her, Part IV: More on Sarah Palin from Alaska's Papers

By: Greg Mitchell Since Friday, E&P has been presenting news and views on Sarah Palin from the sources that know her best, daily papers in her native Alaska. This seemed apt since, by all accounts, she is the least known candidate ever tabbed to be a vice presidential candidate. Perhaps surprisingly, the two leading papers in Alaska, in Faribanks and Anchorage, have both raised serious doubts about he suitability for national office.

On Sunday, both of the papers focused on her claims, in her maiden speech next to John McCain on Friday, that she had opposed the so-called "bridge to nowhere" in her state and earmarks for Alaska in general. The headline for the top story on the Anchorage Daily News web site today carries the headline, "Palin touts stance on 'Bridge to Nowhere,' doesn't note flip-flop."

Here are three excerpts from pieces on this theme in the two papers this morning. The Fairbanks paper also features an AP story that also reveals the Palin "flip flop."

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Anchorage Daily News
by Tom Kizzia

When John McCain introduced Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate Friday, her reputation as a tough-minded budget-cutter was front and center. "I told Congress, thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere," Palin told the cheering McCain crowd, referring to Ketchikan's Gravina Island bridge.

But Palin was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it.

The Alaska governor campaigned in 2006 on a build-the-bridge platform, telling Ketchikan residents she felt their pain when politicians called them "nowhere." They're still feeling pain today in Ketchikan, over Palin's subsequent decision to use the bridge funds for other projects -- and over the timing of her announcement, which they say came in a pre-dawn press release that seemed aimed at national news deadlines.

"I think that's when the campaign for national office began," said Ketchikan Mayor Bob Weinstein on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Weinstein noted, the state is continuing to build a road on Gravina Island to an empty beach where the bridge would have gone -- because federal money for the access road, unlike the bridge money, would have otherwise been returned to the federal government.

It's a more complicated picture than the one drawn by McCain, a persistent critic of special-interest spending and congressional earmarks. He described Palin as "someone who's stopped government from wasting taxpayers' money on things they don't want or need."

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The Daily News-Miner of Fairbanks
Dermot Cole

In her introductory speech Friday as McCain?s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin picked up on the Ketchikan bridge that was never built as a symbol of bad federal policy.

?I championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress,? Palin said at her first campaign appearance. ?In fact, I told Congress ? I told Congress, ?Thanks, but no thanks,? on that bridge to nowhere. If our state wanted a bridge, I said we?d build it ourselves.?

That is not how Palin described her position on the Gravina Island bridge when she ran for governor in 2006.
On Oct. 22, 2006, the Anchorage Daily News asked Palin and the other candidates, ?Would you continue state funding for the proposed Knik Arm and Gravina Island bridges??

Her response: ?Yes. I would like to see Alaska?s infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now ? while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist.?

Palin?s support of the earmark for the bridge was applauded by the late Lew Williams Jr., the retired Ketchikan Daily News publisher who wrote columns on the topic. Williams wrote on Oct. 29, 2006, that Palin was the only gubernatorial candidate that year who consistently supported the Gravina Island Bridge, the Knik Arm Bridge and improvements to the Parks Highway.

Two months earlier, while campaigning in Ketchikan, Palin made a positive reference to the bridge....A year later, she issued a news release as governor saying Ketchikan needed better airport access, but a $398 million bridge was not going to happen.

?Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project and it?s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island,? Palin said on Sept. 21, 2007.

The money was not sent back to the federal government, but spent on other projects. That was hardly ?Thanks but no thanks.?

Alaska has a clear record of seeking earmarks.

In March, Palin?s Washington, D.C., representative, John Katz, wrote a defense of earmarks, published in the Juneau Empire in which he said the state is cutting back on its wish list.

The Palin administration requested 31 earmarks this year totaling $200 million and ?we are not abandoning earmarks altogether,? Katz said, as they are a ?legitimate exercise of Congress? constitutional power to amend the budget proposed by the president.?