Palin is a mother of five, including a child with Down Syndrome that she chose to give birth to and raise rather than aborting. Of course, the rumors are flying around on this one! The conspiracist are at it again.
Her oldest son is about to be deployed to Iraq.
Palin was 1st runner-up in a state level beauty pageant. Some of the Liberals would like to use that against her, that she is one of the beautiful people, an elitist. Ok, I know where you can get a bridge for sale! Frankly, who cares if she's attractive? All you should care about is a strong VP that would make a good President if something happens to President McCain.
She is both a social and a fiscal Conservative. I think Ronald Reagan would be pleased.
Can she get some of the votes from the masses of angry and bitter Hillary supporters who can't and won’t support Obama? Sure! She clings to guns and religion as well! She wins battles over Liberals in Alaska. She can take on her own party!
She shares the core values of the base while helping McCain anchor down Republican moderates to Liberal women who might otherwise have flirted with Obama.
Again, she's a SOLID Conservative and pro-life, pro-marriage woman who has done a LOT to clean up corruption in Alaska. She's a whistle blower, even in her own party, and a reformer who isn't afraid taking on any government agency or business to cut waste.
Remember the bridge to nowhere? Some Liberals would like you to think she was for it before she was against it. It still stings from John Kerry’s “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it,” so they would like nothing more than to spin this into a flip-flop.
So here is where those on the left, who scream life is not black or white, yes or no, clear-cut, want it to be. Hypocrisy!!! Did Palin vote or ask for the money for the bridge or the bridge itself? NO!!!! Was she in power at the time it was? NO!!! Did she say she was for it? NO!!! But she didn’t say she was against it either right away, and that is what the left points to. “See gotcha,” they say. YES that is correct!! A grey area that the left clings to and says the world is run in. Yet they don’t want this to be a grey area. If she did not speak out against it from the get go she must have been for it! Or maybe she didn’t care until the costs ballooned. Was Palin insulted by the term of “Bridge to nowhere”? Yes, because fifty people did live there. They are people and are somebody.
What is the story of the bridge then?
The bridge, a span from the city to Gravina Island, home to only a few dozen people, secured a $223 million earmark in 2005. The pricey designation raised a furor and critics, including McCain, used the bridge as an example of wasteful federal spending on politicians' pet projects.
When she was running for governor in 2006, Palin said she was insulted by the term "bridge to nowhere," according to Ketchikan Mayor Bob Weinstein, a Democrat, and Mike Elerding, a Republican who was Palin's campaign coordinator in the southeast Alaska city.
A press release issued by the governor on September 21, 2007 said she decided to cancel state work on the project because of rising cost estimates.
"It's clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island," Palin said in the news release. "Much of the public's attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here."
The state, however, never gave back any of the money that was originally earmarked for the Gravina Island bridge
More background info on the bridge:
October 20, 2005, Today, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) will offer an amendment to the Senate’s appropriation bill to transfer the $223 million that Congress had previously approved for a bridge in Ketchikan, Alaska, to fund reconstruction of a hurricane-damaged bridge in Louisiana.
Despite the willingness of many in Alaska to give back the bridge to pay for disaster relief, Alaska’s congressional delegation has dug in its heels, and many of the delegation’s colleagues, including all of congressional leadership, support its resistance.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm889.cfm
The proposed Gravina Island Bridge, also known as the “Bridge to Nowhere,” became a national symbol of wasteful congressional spending and driver of earmark reform. On Sept. 21, 2007, the State of Alaska officially abandoned the controversial project.
The Gravina Island Bridge initially received $223 million in 2005 via earmarks by Alaska Republican Senators Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski. The bridge would have connected Ketchikan, Alaska with its local airport on nearby Gravina Island (population 50). Congress stripped the earmark after a national uproar about it but appropriated the money anyway for unspecified transportation uses.
Former Gov. Frank Murkowski’s [Sen. Lisa Murkowski father] administration set aside about $113 million of the appropriation for the Ketchikan bridge. However, Gov. Sarah Palin said the $398 million bridge was $329 million short of full funding, and only $36 million in federal funds were set aside for it. She said it was clear Congress had little interest in spending any more money for it and that the state had higher priorities.
On Oct. 20, 2005, Ted threatened to resign from the Senate if lawmakers took away money allocated for the Gravina Island Bridge and the Knik Arm Bridge and redirected it to Hurricane Katrina repairs in Louisiana. The attempt to redirect the bridge money was defeated, but Congress later removed the earmarks after intense public criticism.
If the bridge were built, the family of Sen. Lisa Murkowski would benefit. Murkowski’s mother Nancy, wife of former Gov. Frank Murkowski, is co-owner with her three siblings of a 35-acre parcel of land on Gravina Island. The plot is valued at $245,000 and is within a mile of the bridge’s western end. While critics charge that the bridge would increase the value of their property, the Murkowski family has taken umbrage at any suggestion of impropriety. Murkowski called her family’s undeveloped Gravina parcel “a worthless piece of property.”
http://www.retireted.com/real_estate/bridge_to_nowhere.php
Additional info on the land deal and problems.
http://www.beyonddelay.org/node/315
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