Alaskans Say Palin Misrepresented Her Position Regarding The Bridge to Nowhere. The Governor Stopped Construction, but Kept the Money.

Candidate for Alaska governor, Sarah Palin said that calling a a bridge that Senator Stevens had earmarked funds for "a bridge to nowhere" was insulting.

 People on the"nowhere" island say that Palin went for political advantage though when she decided to stop work on the bridge.  And the money certainly wasn

't returned to the federal treasury.  Alaska kept it.

Not only that but according to Reuters report "Palin "bridge to nowhere" line angers many Alaskans ":

the Palin administration has spent "tens of millions of dollars" in federal funds to start building a road on Gravina Island that is supposed to link up to the yet-to-be-built bridge, Weinstein said.

"She said 'thanks but no thanks,' but they kept the money," said Elerding about her applause line.

Former state House Speaker Gail Phillips, a Republican who represented the Kenai Peninsula city of Homer, is also critical about Palin's reversal on the bridge issue.

"You don't tell a group of Alaskans you support something and then go to someplace else and say you oppose it," said Phillips, who supported Palin's opponent, Democrat Tony Knowles, in the 2006 gubernatorial race.

Not without some blowback you don't, but that's what Sarah did.

During her first speech after being named as McCain's surprise pick as a running mate, Palin said she had told Congress "'thanks but no thanks' on that bridge to nowhere."

In the city Ketchikan, the planned site of the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere," political leaders of both parties said the claim was false and a betrayal of their community, because she had supported the bridge and the earmark for it secured by Alaska's Congressional delegation during her run for governor.

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.

"People are learning that she pandered to us by saying, I'm for this' ... and then when she found it was politically advantageous for her nationally, abruptly she starts using the very term that she said was insulting," Weinstein said.

tags: sarah palin  john mccain  alaska  bridge to nowhere  

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