wombat_socho

"... but you miss the whole point of picking someone like Palin: she is not part of the Washington (or even Juneau)..."

Well, that's pretty hard to support on the evidence.

Have you read: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-earmarks3-2008sep03,0,2482434.story

It discusses the three times McCain decried her desires as porkbarrel spending. My favorite paragraph debunks the notion that she found the system like that.

"Wasilla had received few if any earmarks before Palin became mayor. She actively sought federal funds -- a campaign that began to pay off only after she hired a lobbyist with close ties to Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who long controlled federal spending as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He made funneling money to Alaska his hallmark."

Wow, scoring almost 12 million for a backwater with fewer than 10,000 people in three years is indeed pretty impressive. But it hardly demonstrates the qualities she's claiming.