Yesterday during an interview with a local Louisville, KY ABC affiliate, reporter Mark Herbert asked Sarah Palin about reports that she doled out political positions to friends, family and campaign donors. When Palin said the people she hired weren’t “cronies” or “politicos,” Herbert asked, “They weren’t politicos, they were just folks who deserved the job?” “Absolutely, yes,” Palin replied. Yet a recent Los Angeles Times examination of state records has shown otherwise:

– More than 100 appointments to state posts — nearly 1 in 4 — went to campaign contributors or their relatives, sometimes without apparent regard to qualifications.

– Alaska historians say some of Palin’s appointees were less qualified than those of her Republican and Democratic predecessors.

– [Tom] Lamal, a public school teacher in Fairbanks until he retired in 2006, was hired as a right-of-way agent despite reports of internal conflicts over whether he was qualified under state law.

The New York Times also reported last month that Palin appointed a high school classmate to a top position in the State Division of Agriculture who “cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.”

Yesterday on Fox News Business, Neil Cavuto dressed down Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for his constantly shifting economic policy proposals. Cavuto complained that McCain’s “positions are always changing” and asked, “What’s the deal with the Straight Talk Express?”:

You rail against big government, yet continue to push cockamamie spending plans that make a mockery of it. That’s why you’re losing right now, Senator McCain. Not because you don’t have the courage of your convictions. But because on economic matters, you have no convictions.

Watch it:

(HT: Crooks and Liars)

Campaigning today, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) said that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) would fix the economy by imposing a spending freeze. She also declared that a McCain administration would balance the budget by the end of their first term. Watch it:

Palin must not have gotten the memo. After promising a balanced budget (though on a constantly shifting timeline) for months, 10 days ago the campaign admitted that it would be virtually impossible to achieve that in just four years:

“The events of the past few months have completely thrown a wrench into that, there’s no way round it. He would still like to balance it. It’s going to be harder, take longer,” said [top economic adviser Douglas] Holtz-Eakin at a debate with his Democratic counterpart at Columbia University in New York.

Earlier this week on MSNBC, McCain campaign flack Tucker Bounds said that if John McCain and Sarah Palin were Alaska voters, they would not vote for Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) — who was recently convicted on seven felony counts. But as First Read noted, Palin is an Alaska voter. However, yesterday during an interview with a local Toledo, OH CBS affiliate, Palin declined to answer when asked if she would vote for Stevens:

Q: So will you cast your ballot for Ted Stevens and are you encouraging others to do so? [...]

PALIN: I’ve never told people who I have voted for before because I see that as a very precious freedom in our country. Free and fair and uh – elections allow us to cast a secret ballot behind the voting booth curtain so that’s the way I’m going to keep it.

Watch it:

When First Read e-mailed Bounds to inform him that Palin will indeed be voting in Alaska, Bounds replied: “She called for him to step down in an interview this morning. I think I’m safe.”