Quote:
Originally Posted by Arbitrary  How does she reinforce the maverick and independent aspects of John McCain? She's extremely far right and was chosen to shore up McCain's base and court women voters at the same time. |
The bridge to nowhere
WAS cancelled. The
claim that she asked for the bridge was a ridiculous spin attempt about Palin's insistence that the federal funds would be better spent on a FERRY which would serve several communities along the coast. Palin successfully lobbied to cancel the bridge and got the ferry (with the icebreaker features that the residents were ORIGINALLY ASKING FOR ANYWAY) and saved the government 300 million dollars.
Palin followed through with her fiscally conservative position and
cut 230 million dollars from the state's wasteful budgets to cut spending.
But as far as being "hard-right", Palin NOT ONLY created a new cabinet-level authority to police greenhouse gas emissions in the state, she fought Big Oil and imposed
what amounts to a REAL windfall tax, which is something Obama and Clinton only talked and dreamed about. And what did the "far-right" conservative Palin do with the extra windfall?
She issued "energy debit cards" to all Alaskans that they can use to pay for their heating and electricity costs.
The "OMGPALINISSOOOOOCONSERVATIVE" bullshit doesn't survive contact with her record. Palin's (or anyone's) 80% approval rating is
only possible with broad support from BOTH parties, and she has done that by steering a decidedly centrist and aggressively populist approach.
In fact, Palin has committed that she won't promote new anti-abortion laws in the state.
She used her first veto to protect the benefits of gay workers from Republican legislation. And despite the acrimony of her own party and advisers,
Palin opted to keep a failing state Dairy company afloat so that the farmers and workers would find new work in a "soft landing" bailout.
Fact is, her record truly IS that of a reformer.... just whether it's
really conservative is the question. Which is something you're gonna hear a LOT more from
conservative commentators.
