Share Vogler's sentiment? You can purchase a "Joe was right!" T-shirt on the AIP's website for $25. The AIP's website also provides helpful links to other secessionist groups, including the Southern Independence Party of Tennessee (which boasts of going after "these Politically Correct Liberal Communist[s]"), Ulster nationalists and Chechen separatists.
The McCain campaign denies that Palin ever joined the AIP. But while it is in dispute whether she attended its 1994 convention, she did visit the 2000 one and addressed AIP conventions in 2006 and 2008. Her husband, Todd, was a registered AIP member from 1995 to 2002, and the AIP leadership certainly considers her one of their own.
Video footage shows AIP Vice Chairman Dexter Clark describing Palin at the 2007 North American Secessionist Convention as an "AIP member before she got the job as a mayor of a small town -- that was a nonpartisan 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." (No need to. The Alaska Legislature's ethics investigators are on the case.) Apparently with Palin in mind, Clark then went on to urge AIP members to "infiltrate" the major parties.
So what does Palin currently think of the AIP? Hard to know -- she's been keeping mum -- but this year she told AIP members: "I'm delighted to welcome you to the 2008 Alaska Independence Party Convention. ... Keep up the good work!"
Does it make you uneasy to have a possible secessionist sympathizer aiming for the White House? Do you worry that Palin shares AIP founder Vogler's burning "hatred for the American government"?
Relax! If so, it will enable her, as vice president, to more effectively bond with foreign leaders she'll meet, many of whom also nurture a hatred for the American government. In diplomatic demarches, finding common ground is always helpful.
McCain has always promised that his ticket would show "independence." We just didn't realize it was going to be this kind.
--
rbrooks@latimescolumnists.com
