I want to send a letter to the editorial page of my local newspaper about McCain's attempt to use Palin to help him reclaim his "reformer" image.  Is anyone willing to read and offer a critique?  My information source was an article from the Seattle Times.

By the way, if any of you want to copy stuff from this letter to send to your local paper, I would be honored.

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Editors:

Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin want voters to think they’re penny-pinching, reformist mavericks who will “take on” their own party and enforce fiscal responsibility in Washington, DC.  To support this image, Palin has repeatedly bragged about how she refused federal earmarks for the notorious “Bridge to Nowhere.” But the truth is Palin hasn’t been shy about pursuing federal earmarks.  In fact, she seems to have unabashedly loved earmarks throughout her political career. 

As mayor, Palin hired a lobbyist to chase down earmarks for her town. She was pretty successful at it, too -- she got $27,000,000 for Wasilla, AK, population < 10,000.  Ms. Palin has continued her love affair with federal earmarks and has become a generous and very popular governor.  It’s no surprise Alaskans love her -- in 2007, while enjoying being free of state income and sales taxes, each and every Alaskan was served up $2,000 from the oil-wealth savings account Alaska calls its “Permanent Fund,” as well as $1,200 from the state's budget surplus.  And while Alaskans enjoyed all this government-doled largesse, Palin requested -- just this year -- that Sen. Ted Stevens, R-AK, secure 31 earmarks totaling $197 million (for a state having a population of well under one million)!  And Gov. Palin bragged that her 2008 requests for earmarks had been “slashed” from $550 million in 2007.  Wow!  How fortunate for us!

How do folks in the other 49 states feel about each and every Alaskan being "on the dole" to the tune of $3,200, while paying no state income or sales tax, and benefitting from huge federal earmarks – that taxpaying chumps living outside of Alaska help to pay?  

Will the average American voter even learn the truth about Palin’s record with earmarks?  Will the mainstream media and press make as much noise about this as they did with the contrived “Obama is presumptuous” story? 

I’m just getting acquainted with Palin.  Why are she and McCain attempting to give us the impression she’s an earmark hater?  Her actions tell me something quite different.  I don’t like when politicians try to deceive voters!

Sincerely,

Laura Jordan