But Gov. Palin’s administration acknowledges that it is still pursuing a project that would link Ketchikan to its airport — with the help of as much as $73 million in federal funds earmarked by Congress for the original project. 

“What the media isn’t reporting is that the project isn’t dead,” Roger Wetherell, spokesman for Alaska’s Department of Transportation, said. In a process begun this past winter, the state’s DOT is currently considering (PDF) a number of alternative solutions (five other possible bridges or three different ferry routes [bold mine-DL]) to link Ketchikan and Gravina Island.

The DOT has not yet developed cost estimates for those proposals, Wetherell said, but $73 million of the approximately $223 million Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Rep. Don Young (R-AK) earmarked for the bridge in 2005 has been set aside for the Gravina Access Project. ~Paul Kiel

Via Glenn Thrush

Perhaps now she will say “thanks, but no thanks”?  Well, no, not really. 

To recap: Palin’s record on earmarks isn’t what McCain and Palin make it out to be, and they consistently misrepresent that record to justify selecting her as VP nominee, but her earmark record is better than Murkowski’s (some accomplishment), and running a campaign largely on hostility to earmarks is trivial in any case.  So this confirms several things we knew: Palin was poorly vetted, the McCain campaign is trying to mislead the public, Palin doesn’t have much to show for her claim to being a reformer, and McCain and Palin are running an absurdly substance-free campaign.   

Update: The Wall Street Journal lede from the new story on Palin’s earmark requests as governor:

Last week, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain said his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, hadn’t sought earmarks or special-interest spending from Congress, presenting her as a fiscal conservative. But state records show Gov. Palin has asked U.S. taxpayers to fund $453 million in specific Alaska projects over the past two years.