Elizabeth A. Leib

by Elizabeth A. Leib

Apparently the McCain campaign in its haste to grab the national spotlight was surprised to learn that Sarah Palin earned her Governor post by campaigning in support of the infamous bridge to no where. Once in office and the bridge became a national joke, she reversed her position. Read this brief text from the August 31 broadcast of ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos:

STEPHANOPOULOS: But is she ready to serve on Day One? It sounds like you’re shifting the criteria.

GRAHAM: No, I think so, I think so. Compared to Barack Obama, absolutely. She has done things that Barack Obama would never dream of, to go in her state and say, “I’m not going to build a bridge to nowhere.” A four hundred dollar — million dollar appropriation that was passed by brute force in the Congress between two senior members of the congressional delegation, very powerful figures in Washington, and for her to say to the citizens of Alaska, “We’re not going to do this, ’cause this is not necessary, and it’s wasteful — to take on your own Republican Party” –

STEPHANOPOULOS: But, Senator, she turned against that only — she campaigned for it in her 2006 race and turned against it in 2007 only after it became a national joke.

GRAHAM: Well, the point is that she had the courage to say, “We’re not going to do it because it’s not the right signal we want to send everybody else from Alaska.” She took on the Republican Party chairman and called him unethical; she took on the attorney general who eventually resigned because he was doing things that were inappropriate.

I’m in politics. I voted against the bridge to nowhere. I was one of 14. It scared the heck out of me because I knew what was going to come my way. I can’t imagine being the governor of the state and telling the people who were able to secure the bridge, “We’re not going to do it.”

—M.G. & M.W. (from Media Matters website)

Here’s a video of Palin during her 2006 run for governor supporting the bridge to no where: