In the last few days, there were a number of diaries about Sarah Palin's debating skills. They were based on the Alaska Gubernatorial Debate in which Sarah Palin, Tony Knowles and Andrew Halcro participated. While she is certainly more competent dealing with issues about which she is familiar, you still get the impression her knowedge and abilities are about an inch wide and an angstrom deep. Listen to her answers on education (high school dropout rate and no child left behind questions), village policing and rural resources. When she has little to say she resorts to rambling platitudes, but then so do many politicians. In this debate at least they were relevant. But there was an interesting exchange about the access road to the Bridge to Nowhere. It occurs between 1:02:50 and 1:05:00 in the debate.
The question is asked what are each of the candidates going to do about the access road which apparently Murkowski is trying to jam through the legislature. The question itself implies there will be no bridge, otherwise why even ask about an access road and not the bridge itself. Palin is the first to answer and she says she will not cancel the contract. Her reason seems to be she just doesn't cancel contracts that Alaskans have worked hard to get. Halcro answers next. His answer is the interesting one. He says he would immediately cancel the contract for the access road since the bridge is not going to be built at least not in the foreseeable future, so what is the purpose of an access road. Knowles gives a more rambling answer that seems to imply he would not allow the access road to go forward either.
This exchange is interesting for two reasons. Apparently the Bridge to Nowhere was understood to be dead before Palin was even elected to be Governor. Judging by the debate, it was common knowledge. Second Sarah Palin has no qualms about wasting taxpayer money for completely worthless projects. Palin says she would not stop things that the Alaska congressional delegation worked hard to bring to Alaska. Apparently the merits of the project are irrelevant. Talk about aligning yourself with Senator Stevens and pork barrel politics. Sarah Palin is implying she favors any, and as much, pork as the congressional delegation can bring to Alaska.
After the way McCain railed against earmarks in the debate, it's hard to reconcile Palin's attitude to pork. Perhaps it will come up in the VP debate, if there is one. Judge for yourself. Here again is the link to the debate. The specific exchange takes place from 1:02:50 to 1:05:00.