By- Suzie-Q @ 12:30 PM MST
McCain’s AIP Defense Raises More Questions
Daily Kos- by georgia10
Wed Sep 03, 2008 at 08:35:31 AM PDT
“The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government…and I won’t be buried under their damn flag.” – Joe Vogler, Founder of the Alaskan Independence Party (AIP)
In the wake of claims by AIP officials that McCain’s VP pick was “an AIP member” in the early 1990s (see background here, here, here, here and here), the McCain campaign–realizing that having Sarah Palin tied to a secessionist group probably isn’t going to win over voters–has gone on the defensive.
As part of their push to prove that McCain’s candidate doesn’t have ties to the radical AIP, they released Sarah Palin’s voter registration records (PDF)since 1982. And yes, those records confirm that she has been a registered Republican since that time. And at about the same time the McCain released those records, Lynette Clark, one of the AIP officers who stated that Palin was a “member”, retracted her statement.
But as the McCain camp was trying to stamp out one fire, another one flared up yesterday, as we learned that Sarah Palin’s husband, Todd Palin, currently registered as “undeclared,” was indeed an official member of the Alaskan Independence Party from October 1995 through July 2002 (except for a few months in 2000).
No comment yet from the McCain campaign explaining why the “First Dude,” as Sarah Palin calls him, was registered with a party whose goal is, among other things, to hold a vote on whether Alaska should secede from the Union.
The McCain campaign’s feverish attempts to blot out any questions regarding Sarah Palin’s ties to AIP however yield more questions than answers. While the records they provided demonstrate that Palin was officially a Republican Party member, there is no evidence provided by the McCain campaign that explains just why McCain’s VP pick spoke to the AIP Convention on multiple occasions, and why longtime members of the AIP viewed her association with that party to be such that they thought she was “an AIP member.”
The McCain campaign, trying to swiftly bury this under the rug as Palin is set to take the stage tonight, claims that Palin never attended the group’s 1994 convention. But they did reveal that she did attend their 2000 Convention, as a “courtesy.” Attending a separatist convention out of courtesy? More on that later today.
But while admitting that she attended the 2000 Convention, the McCain campaign vehemently denies that she attended the convention in 1994, as was initially reported.
But as Jake Tapper over at ABC News reports, witnesses who were there say that McCain’s defense simply isn’t true. Not only has Lynette Clark not retracted her statement regarding Palin’s attendance at the AIP’s 1994 Convention, but that statement is now corroborated by another former AIP official:
Mark Chryson, chairman of the AIP from 1995 to 2002 — tells ABC News that “Palin was at the convention in 1994. She was there.”
The McCain campaign may have hoped that the release of voter registration records would put an end to these inquiries, but those records fail to explain away the following:
- Palin’s confirmed attendance at the AIP’s 1994 Convention
- Her confirmed attendance at the AIP’s 2000 Convention
- Her videotaped address to the AIP Convention in 2008, and
- Her husband’s almost decade-long membership in the organization.
As this story continues to develop, one thing remains clear: an 11-page PDF isn’t going to make these questions go away.
(h/t to JedReport for the image).
Something stinks in Alaska and it’s not fish…
Palin said she was wondering the VP slot could do for the people of Alaska. She will put the people of Alaska first before the People of the United States.