Palin Disagrees With Michigan Pullout, Takes Second Stab at 'Gotcha' Questions

Palin Disagrees With Michigan Pullout, Takes Second Stab at 'Gotcha' Questions
Sarah Palin, in an interview with FOX News, disagreed Friday with the McCain campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan.

FOXNews.com

Friday, October 03, 2008

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Sarah Palin criticized John McCain's decision to pull campaign resources out of Michigan in an interview with FOX News on Friday, saying she and her husband Todd would "be happy" to campaign in the economically distraught battleground state.

The Republican vice presidential nominee, on the heels of her debate with Joe Biden, also took a second stab at questions that seemed to trip her up during recent interviews, declaring that she looks "forward to speaking to the media more and more every day."

Palin said the decision to pull out of Michigan, which was announced Thursday, was "not a surprise" to her since polls show McCain slipping in the state.

But Palin said that when she read the news, she "fired off a quick e-mail and said, 'Oh come on, do we have to?'"

"Todd and I, we'd be happy to get to Michigan ...We'd be so happy to speak to the people there in Michigan who are hurting," she said. "Whatever Todd and I can do in realizing what their challenges in that state are .... I wanna get back to Michigan and I want to try."

Tune in to FOX News throughout the day, and watch Special Report at 6 p.m. ET, to see more of the Palin interview.

It's unclear whether the McCain campaign will heed Palin's request. McCain aides said on a conference call Thursday that Michigan had always been the weakest of the toss-up states for them, and that they are still competing in several other battlegrounds like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and moving resources into high-stakes states like Florida.

Palin's public break with McCain on strategy is surprising but not unprecendented. She has disagreed with him on policy issues like drilling in Alaska, and she said in Thursday night's debate that it's inevitable the two will disagree.

"What do you expect? A team of mavericks," she said. "Of course we're not gonna agree on everything."

Palin spoke with FOX News just hours after finishing her first and only debate with Biden. She said she "had a ball" and thought it went well.

She also tried to explain her shaky performance during interviews with CBS News' Katie Couric over the past week.

"The Sarah Palin in those interviews was a little bit annoyed because no matter what you say you're gonna get clobbered," she said.

Asked by Couric to name the periodicals she reads, Palin repeatedly declined. She also would not name any Supreme Court decisions she disagreed with, other than the Roe v. Wade abortion ruling.

Palin told FOX News on Friday that she reads the same newspapers and magazines as everyone else, "including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and The Economist."

She said she "shouldn't have been so flippant" on the Supreme Court question. "I can cite a lot of cases that I absolutely disagree with the Supreme Court on."

Asked about claims that she was being sequestered and over-managed by McCain staffers over the past week, she said: "Well I beg to differ with the notion that I was reined in in any way, but if there was any of that, it's over."