Her bringing up the bridge to nowhere twice, after she was called on it at her "Dayton" speech (which was in my hometown of Fairborn, in an arena whose roof can be seen from my parents' kitchen window, at least in the winter when there are no trees in the way), seems dumb to me. I believe the reports that she supported the bridge during her election campaign, saying it was essential to Ketchikan's economic future, and it seems like she decided against it only when it became politically prudent. I don't think calling it a "bridge to nowhere" was fair, since it was to be a bridge connecting Alaska's 5th largest city with its only airport (the airport is what matters, not the handful of people living on the island), but let's get some more perspective: The "city" has only 7,368 people, and an improved ferry system sounds to me like more than suitable enough to handle 200,000 airline travelers a year. The bridge would have cost $400,000,000, and that's an obscene amount.
Palin made the right choice by canceling it, but she shouldn't have supported it earlier, and she shouldn't be championing it now as if Alaska gave the money back or something (it didn't give it back, but by the time Alaska got it it was no longer an earmark for the bridge and was just for general Alaska transportation infrastructure).
Palin's desire to ban books at her local library while she was mayor, her spending policies (give money back to the people and instead use bonds to pay for projects), and some apparent abuses of power bother me.
However, I think it's extremely exciting that she's in the race, and most other choices McCain could have made would have been boring (except for maybe Lieberman). Maybe this will get McCain elected. I liked McCain's speech tonight. I was watching on PBS with Jim Lehrer, and a couple commentators were confused by his speech—they said he didn't sound like someone running from the party that's been in power the last 8 years, but that he gave a "kick the bums out" speech. They said McCain made it clear he was running as McCain. I agree. Even though McCain picked Palin rather than Lieberman, I think he really does want to be bipartisan and work to actually get things done instead of just push a party agenda.
Plus I'm socially conservative as far as abortion and protecting traditional marriage. Though having dealt with the real world issue of health care in the last couple months, I think the nation's health care system, and all insurance in the US for that matter, has serious problems. Health care (and all insurance) should be for the people, not for wall street investors who want their stock price to go up. To heck with capitalism where insurance is involved. Insurance companies should turn their excess profits (beyond a certain safety cushion) back over to the people who have to pay premiums. That's what my car insurance company does.