AP Story on Obama's stump in Flint, Michigan. Below are comments on earmarking. Do you think a state with the highest unemployment rate - 8.5 % wants to hear about John McCain or earmarks? He never talks with the audience. He talks at them and treats them as if they exist for his teleprompter oratorical pleasure. (Emphasis mine)
McCain and Palin accused Obama of requesting nearly $1 billion in earmarks -- special projects that lawmakers try to get for their districts and constituents -- for Illinois.How many people even know (or care) about the "bridge to nowhere". It never went nor will it ever. And how far would the half a billion dollars Obama raised go in Michigan or New Orleans or Texas?
The new line of attack came after Obama made his first direct criticism of Palin over the weekend, using the topic of earmarks.
"Just the other day our opponent brought up earmarks -- and frankly I was surprised that he would even raise the subject at all," Palin said. "I thought he wouldn't want to go there."
The Republicans are trying to bury Palin's record of seeking hefty allocations as governor of Alaska.
This year, Palin's state government has sought 31 so-called earmarks totaling $198 million, about $295 for every person in her sparsely populated state.
Obama has sought none for Illinois in the current year. In 2007, he supported $311 million in special project spending, about $24 for every Illinoisan.
In Palin's two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request among the 50 U.S. states.
While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, she had backed the project and only began her opposition after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."
Obama criticized a new McCain ad that says Palin "stopped the Bridge to Nowhere."
"I mean, you can't just make stuff up. You can't just recreate yourself. You can't just reinvent yourself. The American people aren't stupid," Obama said.
Obama wouldn't go so far as to say McCain and Palin are lying, even when the audience tried to goad him into it, but his campaign began showing an ad Monday that did.
"Politicians lying about their records?" an announcer asks over a shot of McCain and Palin boarding a plane. "You don't call that maverick. You call it more of the same."
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds responded to the charges of dishonesty by saying: "Barack Obama should familiarize himself with the honest facts: John McCain and Governor Palin have actually reformed government to root out money in politics and fought wasteful spending -- Sen. Obama has not."
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