Sen. DeMint: Alaska Dems Credit Palin with Killing Bridge

The John McCain campaign responded today to mounting tension over Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s (R) early support for the so-called “Bridge to Nowhere,” claiming the Alaska Democratic Party credits her with killing the project.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) pushed that claim today in an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal entitled, “Yes, Palin Did Stop that Bridge.”

“Even the Alaska Democratic Party credits her with killing the bridge,” DeMint wrote, saying Palin “saved taxpayers millions” by changing her stance to oppose the project.

An Alaska Democratic Party website dedicated to opposing Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) claims Palin “said…that the state had higher priorities” when she officially nixed the project as governor. Stevens originally secured the $223 million earmark in 2005.

DeMint’s office referenced that page as citation for the op-ed, and the Senate Conservatives Fund, a political action committee chaired by DeMint, first unearthed and blogged about the quote last week. Multiple websites, including the Senate Conservatives Fund’s, claim that the site’s administrators delete the page containing the quote about Palin, though it is still available.

Democrats nationwide have cried foul over Palin’s repeated claim that she “told Congress ‘thanks, but no, thanks’ on that bridge to nowhere,” noting that she supported the bridge project during her 2006 gubernatorial run. According to reports, Palin ended the project only after a national uproar over it, citing opposition from Congress and the national public.

“It’s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island,” Palin reportedly said in a news release announcing the project’s end. “Much of the public’s attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here.”

The Democratic website, called Retire Ted, acknowledges that Palin cited a lack of congressional support for the bridge when she decided to stop building it, though the “higher priorities” quote seems to contrast Palin’s stance on the bridge with Stevens’s. The page in question attacks Stevens for initially securing the earmark.

Update: The Alaska Democratic Party disputes the claim that Palin killed the bridge project, saying it was dead before Palin dropped her support.

“The page does not credit Palin as the GOP is pretending,” the party said in a news release Monday after claims about its site surfaced on the web. “Palin stopped supporting the bridge, but only after it was already dead, and after she supported it while running for Governor.”

The party says it takes issue with how Palin has portrayed her record on the bridge since being added to John McCain’s ticket.

“Our web site reports what was said at the time in news accounts,” party spokeswoman Kay Brown told The Hill today. “The facts of what happened are not consistent with how she has portrayed the situation since her debut on the national stage.”