The AIP Story - Meme Collection/Talking Point Thread

[Stinky The Clown]

Let's try an experiment. let's use one thread (this one or another, makes no difference) to collect and hash over how to play the AIP story.

AIP = Alaska Independence Party. Secessionists. Kinda like the same way there were secessionists in a certain region of our country in the 1840s and 1850s. Secessionists want to break the country apart by breaking away from the Union. In some circles (like American circles!) these people would be classified as subversives or even traitors.

Sarah Palin was connected, to a greater or lesser degree, to a secessionist movement in Alaska.

This issue has the potential to be both real **and** substantive. It does not go anywhere **near** her family or personal issues. This is about the disloyal actions of a person who would become president of the very union she may have helped to subvert.

How do we spin and play this?

(note: what I just said in this OP is pretty much meaningless because it is simply my own viewpoint. The thread is about what **you** think.

Let's all try to discuss this seriously.

[dennis4868]

1. has any major news outlet...

brougt up and explained the AIP story? I have not seen it on TV or read it in the paper yet...

[Stinky The Clown]

2. Nope, not to my knowledge

It is way too explosive.

[dennis4868]

4. a story being way too explosive....

has not stopped the "liberal" media from exposing things about Dems and their families (even if it is totally not true).

[endthewar]

19. As soon as Keith's show comes back after the RNC, he will surely profile it

[Subdivisions]

3. I'm not sure we should support the secession

fantasies of Vermont and then turn right around and condemn Palin for (maybe) attempting the same thing.

[Stinky The Clown]

5. Who supports Vermont secession?

That's a new one for me.

:shrug:

[Subdivisions]

9. When whispers of a secessionist movement in Vermont hit DU...

an overwhelming majority of those who commented were in support of Vermont seceeding from the US.

I never commented on it one way or the other. That sort of discussion is sure to raise flags in Agent Mike's office.

[Stinky The Clown]

13. Hahaha

Good ol' Agent Mike.

I din't know he wuz still aroun'

[stillcool]

16. I've often thought secession..

was the likely conclusion to the breaking down of our federal government. I think it would be great to have this in the public dialogue. Regardless of what DU'ers have said about Vermont.

[TomClash]

6. Forget the personal issues

Just the succession issue disqualifies her. It borders on treason.

[Stinky The Clown]

7. Yeah, that's the central point .... but the media is ignoring it

How do we get it out there and framed in a way that makes it as serious as perhaps it ought to be.

[TomClash]

8. Here's my question

How can she run the country she wants to leave?

[Stinky The Clown]

10. Yeah .... we agree ......

The issue is how do we get that question to be asked by the media?

[TomClash]

11. I can't answer that one

Emails?

[Blue_Tires]

12. link it to those anti-government militia types that made news during the clinton years

[sinkingfeeling]

14. But Palin was associated with AIP prior to the GOP taking in, with welcoming arms, all

those 'extremist' groups; white supremacists, tax evaders, KKK members, militia groups, sons of the Confederacy, etc.

[dajoki]

15. Here's more...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=6879876&mesg_id=6879876

Members of 'Fringe' Alaskan Independence Party Say Palin Was a Member in 90s
September 01, 2008 6:52 PM

The campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., likes to herald the independence of its new running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/09/members...

Officials of the Alaskan Independence Party say that Palin was once so independent, she was once a member of their party, which, since the 1970s, has been pushing for a legal vote for Alaskans to decide whether or not residents of the 49th state can secede from the United States.

And while McCain's motto -- as seen in a new TV ad -- is "Country First," the AIP's motto is the exact opposite -- "Alaska First -- Alaska Always."

<<snip>>

"We are a state's rights party," says Clark, a self-employed goldminer. The AIP has "a plank that challenges the legality of the Alaskan statehood vote as illegal and in violation of United Nations charter and international law."

<<snip>>

She doesn't know what Palin's position was.

"It never came up in conversation," Clark recalls. "But when she joined the party, our platform was right under her nose."

Clark says that Palin left the party and became a Republican in 1996, when she first ran for mayor of Wasilla.

The McCain-Palin campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

<<snip>>

Earlier this year, Palin sent a video message to the AIP for its annual convention, where AIP vice chair George Clark told the small crowd that Palin "was an AIP member before she got the job as a mayor of a small town –- that was a non-partisan job. But you get along to go along -– she eventually joined the Republican Party, where she had all kinds of problems with their ethics, and well, I won’t go into that. She also had about an 80 percent approval rating, and is pretty well sympathetic to her former membership."

<<snip>>

She is not a fan of McCain.

"I can't understand why in God's name she has aligned herself with a candidate who opposes the development of our republic and Alaska's resource wealth," Clark says.

[Stinky The Clown]

17. That's good stuff!

But your second link (abc news blog) doesn't work.

[dajoki]

20. Sorry, try this one...

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/09/members-of-frin.html

[Stinky The Clown]

21. Much better! Thanks!

:hi:

[Stinky The Clown]

18. Palin addressing the AIP convention on video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwvPNXYrIyI

This is a little disappointing, actually. Listen carefully to her words. Nowhere does she espouse the secession the AIP wants. She walks right up to the line, but never crosses it.