Palin defends record as governor

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin defended nearly 200 million US dollars in federal pet projects she sought as Alaska governor this year as her ticket mate John McCain insisted she had never requested them.

As national polls showed Mr McCain moving ahead of rival Barack Obama with help from women and conservatives excited about Mrs Palin, the Democrat ended the week aggressively, releasing an ad mocking Mr McCain as out-of-touch and accusing his rival of lying about him.

Mrs Palin, Mr McCain’s surprise selection as his running mate, has been Alaska’s governor for less than two years and before that was a small-town mayor. Her highly anticipated first televised interview was airing this week as Americans seek to learn more about her.

She has energised like-minded conservatives and pulled a core Republican constituency closer to a presidential candidate they had initially eyed with wariness.

But, she has also raised questions about her experience and whether her state’s high amounts of federal funding conflict with Mr McCain’s stand against wasteful spending on local projects, known as “earmarks”.

In the second part of her interview with ABC News, Mrs Palin was confronted with two claims that have been a staple of her reputation since joining the Republican ticket: That she was opposed to federal earmarks, even though her request for such special spending projects for 2009 was the highest per capita figure in the U.S.; and that she opposed a 398 million US dollar bridge linking Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, known as the “Bridge to Nowhere”.

Mrs Palin actually turned against the bridge project only after it became a national symbol of wasteful spending and Congress had pulled money for it.

Mrs Palin told ABC’s Charles Gibson that since she took office, the state had “drastically” reduced its efforts to secure earmarks and would continue to do so while she was governor.

“What I’ve been telling Alaskans for these years that I’ve been in office, is, no more,” Mrs Palin said.

On the Bridge to Nowhere, Mrs Palin said she had supported a link from the mainland to the airport but not necessarily the costly bridge project.

“It’s not inappropriate for a mayor or for a governor to request and to work with their Congress and their congressmen, their congresswomen, to plug into the federal budget, along with every other state, a share of the federal budget for infrastructure,” Mrs Palin said.

Mrs Palin’s comments came after Mr McCain sat for a feisty grilling on morning TV talk show The View, where he claimed erroneously that his running mate had not sought money for such pet projects.

“Not as governor she didn’t,” Mr McCain said, ignoring the record.

The panel of female hosts also pressed Mr McCain on Mrs Palin’s religious views, his position on abortion and whether he had traded in his maverick ways to placate conservatives.

A new survey released has Mr McCain barely ahead of Mr Obama thanks to strong support from suburban and working-class whites and a huge edge in how people rate each candidate’s experience.

The poll has Mr McCain leading 48 to 44%, and has a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points among likely voters.

Mr Obama has called Mrs Palin a “phenomenon” and acknowledged she has given her ticket a boost.

But his aides say Mr McCain is vulnerable to new criticisms because he has stretched the truth in recent comments and ads, and because Mrs Palin was shaky on foreign policy in a previously released part of the ABC News interview.

“You know, I’m not going to be making up lies about John McCain,” Mr Obama told undecided voters in Dover. But he dipped into history, citing the oft-repeated phrase: “If you don’t stop lying about me, I’m going to have to start telling the truth about you.”

Mr Obama’s newest TV ad makes a none-too-subtle dig at McCain’s age. It shows Mr McCain at a hearing in the early 1980s, wearing giant glasses and an out-of-style suit. Other images include a disco ball, clunky phone, outdated computer and Rubik’s Cube. “Things have changed in the last 26 years,” the announcer says, “but McCain hasn’t.”