Claim: John McCain says that Sarah Palin is a "maverick reformer"
Truth: McCain critcizes earmark spending while standing next to Palin, who has requested nearly $200 million in earmarks for Alaska this year 
Truth: McCain has also on many past occasions criticized Palin's earmark spending in Alaska
Truth: McCain also blamed the money sent to Alaska for the "Bridge to Nowhere" for the 35W bridge collapse in Minnesota

While John McCain now touts Sarah Palin as a "maverick reformer" who "fought earmark spending" as Mayor of Wassila, Alaska and then later as Governor of that state, in the years before he chose her as his Vice Presidential nominee, McCain often criticized money that was going to Alaska for Palin's projects. 

On the campaign trail, John McCain and Palin have both been speaking out forcefully about how they will "end" the practice of earmarking (Federal funds set aside for specific projects in the states). Yet, no mention is made of the fact the Governor Palin herself has requested $197 million worth of earmarks in the 2009 federal budget.

Campaigning in Virginia, McCain suggested earmarks are particularly shameful at a time when families are struggling with rising food, gas and home mortgage costs. He vowed again to veto any bill that contains such funding.
"I got an old ink pen, my friends, and the first pork barrel-laden earmark, big-spending bill that comes across my desk, I will veto it. You will know their names. I will make them famous and we'll stop this corruption," McCain said during a rally at a park in suburban Washington, D.C.
Palin has sought $197 million worth of earmarks for 2009, down about 25 percent from the $256 million she sought in the 2008 budget year. As mayor of tiny Wasilla, Alaska, she hired a lobbyist to seek federal money for special projects. Wasilla obtained 14 earmarks, totaling $27 million, between 2000-2003, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Associated Press - McCain and Palin castigate the earmarks she seeks 

Years ago, Senator William Proxmire began awarding an annual "Golden Fleece Award" for the worst examples of earmark or "pork" spending in the federal budget. When Proxmire retired, Senator McCain took up the mantle of the Senate's most visible opponent of earmark spending. 

Three times in recent years, McCain's catalogs of "objectionable" spending have included earmarks for this small Alaska town, requested by its mayor at the time -- Sarah Palin.
[...]
In 2001, McCain's list of spending that had been approved without the normal budget scrutiny included a $500,000 earmark for a public transportation project in Wasilla. The Arizona senator targeted $1 million in a 2002 spending bill for an emergency communications center in town -- one that local law enforcement has said is redundant and creates confusion.
McCain also criticized $450,000 set aside for an agricultural processing facility in Wasilla that was requested during Palin's tenure as mayor and cleared Congress soon after she left office in 2002.

LA Times - McCain had criticized earmarks from Palin  

More recently in both 2007 and 2008, John McCain has drawn a parallel between the $233 million that went to Alaska in the "bridge to nowhere" scandal and the collapse of the 35W Bridge in Minneapolis which killed 13 people. Remember--even though Alaska did not build the bridge, they still kept all that US taxpayer money.

Days after the 35W bridge collapse John McCain connected that $233 million with the tragedy that claimed 13 lives in Minneapolis.
"Maybe if we had done it right, maybe some of that money would have gone to inspect those bridges and other bridges around the country," McCain said at a campaign stop in Ankeny, Iowa on Aug. 4, 2007. "Maybe the 200,000 people who cross that bridge every day would have been safer than spending $233 million of your tax dollars on a bridge in Alaska to an island with 50 people on it."
One month after McCain’s critical comments Palin changed her position on the bridge, citing the project’s high cost to Alaskans, while continuing to defend the project.

“The bridge in Minneapolis didn’t collapse because there wasn’t enough money. The bridge in Minneapolis collapsed because so much money was spent on wasteful, unnecessary pork-barrel projects…. I think there is a long, long list of earmarks which went to unnecessary and unwanted projects that I think should have gone to the bridge in Minnesota. I don’t know whether it would have gone or not, but if you’re spending $223 million on a bridge in Alaska to an island with 50 people on it. …”--John McCain