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“Energy is inherently linked to security and prosperity,” Palin said. “We sort of have a ‘do-nothing Senate’ right now where nobody’s wanting to really pick up the ball and run with it and take the steps that we have to take to become more energy independent.

“And it’s going to take a whole change in leadership in order to really crush that gridlock and get going on this,”

“Through reform, absolutely. Look at the oversight that has been lack, I believe, here at the 1930s type of regulatory regime overseeing some of these corporations. And we’ve got to get a more coordinated and a much more stringent oversight regime…government can play a very, very appropriate role in the oversight as people are trusting these companies with their life savings, with their investments, with their insurance policies, and construction bonds, and everything else.

“When we see the collapse that we’re seeing today, you know that something is broken and John McCain has a great plan to get in there and fix it.”

Using partisanship for political gain

“Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we’re talking about today…It is that profound and that important an issue that we work together on this, and not just let one party try to kind of grab it all or capture it all and pretend like they have all the answers. It’s going to take everybody working together on this.”

“I think the corruption on Wall Street. That’s to blame. And that violation of the public trust. And that contract that should be inherent in corporations who are spending, investing other people’s money, the abuse of that is what has got to stop.

“And it’s a matter, too, of some of these CEOs and top management people, and shareholders too not holding that management accountable, being addicted to, we call it, OPM, O-P-M, “other people’s money.”

“Spending that, investing that, not using the prudence that we expect of them. But here again, government has got to play an appropriate role in the stringent oversight, making sure that those abuses stop.”

“Well, you know, first, Fannie and Freddie, different because quasi-government agencies there where government had to step in because of the adverse impacts all across our nation, especially with homeowners.”

“It’s just too impacting, we had to step in there. I do not like the idea though of taxpayers being used to bailout these corporations. Today it was AIG, important call there, though, because of the construction bonds and the insurance carrier duties of AIG.”

“But first and foremost, taxpayers cannot be looked to as the bailout, as the solution to the problems on Wall Street.”

“Well, it was an unfair attack on the verbiage that Senator McCain chose to use because the fundamentals, as he was having to explain afterwards, he means our workforce, he means the ingenuity of the American people. And of course, that is strong and that is the foundation of our economy.”

“Certainly it is a mess though, the economy is a mess. And there have been abuses on Wall Street and that adversely effects Main Street.”

“It is, somebody was saying this morning, a toxic waste there on Wall Street, affecting Main Street. And we’ve got to cure this.”

“Yes it is gridlock and that’s ridiculous. That’s why we don’t have an energy policy, that’s why there hasn’t been the reform of the abuse of the earmark process. And real reform is tough, and you do ruffle feathers along the way. But John McCain has that streak of independence in him that I think is very, very important in America today in our leadership. I have that within me also. And that’s why John McCain tapped me to be a team of mavericks, of independents coming in there without the allegiances to that cronyism, to that good ole’ boy system. I’m certainly a Washington outsider and I’m proud of that because I think that that is what we need also.”