Northern Exposure

Jesse Walker | March 26, 2008

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin sends comradely greetings to the Alaskan Independence Party:

For those of you who didn't watch the video: No, she did not in fact call for Alaskan independence. That would have been more fun, but you can't have everything. The AIP actually elected a governor a couple decades ago, but he was an old pol borrowing the party's ballot line who did nothing to advance its central cause once in office. It's possible that Palin has secret sympathies for secession. It's also possible that she's just keeping her options open.

As for the AIP itself: I like most of its platform, and I appreciate its pan-devolutionary spirit, which among other things led it to endorse Russell Means' latest Lakota uprising. I can't say I care for its choice of candidates in 2004's presidential election...

...but then again, the more success it has, the less its presidential preferences should matter.

[Via Third Party Watch.]

Comments

|3.26.08 @ 10:56PM|#

I'm guessing this thread will not focus on the actual topic at hand, but rather on the extreme MILFness of Governor Palin.

ian|3.26.08 @ 10:58PM|#

While she may be a MILF, WTF is she wearing?

|3.26.08 @ 10:59PM|#

I just hope the A.I.P.s remember that "nothing succeeds like seccession."


[WTF is MILFness?]

maybe also a punk band\'s nam|3.26.08 @ 11:03PM|#

Aresen - postpartum nubility

|3.26.08 @ 11:12PM|#

I really must learn to google before I OMIF.

|3.26.08 @ 11:41PM|#

ian - it's alaska, dude. the land of carhardt's and ugg's.

coldest state
hottest governor

Kolohe|3.27.08 @ 12:34AM|#

Hey, Sarah, if you are really keeping your options open, call me anytime.

(yeah, per the advice in another thread, I gotta get myself a girlfriend)

|3.27.08 @ 12:44AM|#

I definitely saw her in either MILFhunter or MILFS Like it Big.

Abe Lincoln|3.27.08 @ 12:45AM|#

Isn't secession considered treason post 1860s?

Great White MILF Hunter|3.27.08 @ 1:13AM|#

Too Northern, not enough Exposure.

Bingo|3.27.08 @ 1:54AM|#

I'd move to Alaska if they seceded. They'd have the highest per-capita GDP in the Western Hemisphere after tapping ANWR. It would be Dubai with icebergs.

Sam McCord|3.27.08 @ 2:56AM|#

She could manhandle my panhandle.

Untermensch|3.27.08 @ 6:28AM|#

The AIP actually elected a governor a couple decades ago, but he was an old pol borrowing the party's ballot line who did nothing to advance its cause once in office.

Wally Hickel actually did do a credible job of pushing the low end of the AIP cause, more than any candidate before or since. He was consistent in pushing for greater control over the Federal lands in Alaska by the state, a big issue in Alaska and a big part of the IAP's complaint about the Fed. He wasn't stumping for actual independence, a political nonstarter even in Alaska at that point, but he was pretty good on pushing a lot of the demands of the AIP, which had pretty much become a one-man show under Joe Vogler before he was murdered (at least in terms of public perception).

Jesse Walker|3.27.08 @ 9:17AM|#

Wally Hickel actually did do a credible job of pushing the low end of the AIP cause

Fair enough ... I changed it to "central cause."

|3.27.08 @ 9:17AM|#

IIRC, Hickel won because the dem and repub candidates were almost exactly alike. It should also be noted that in that same election was the ballot initiative to recriminalize marijuana.

Untermensch|3.27.08 @ 10:58AM|#

Thanks Jesse. I didn't expect any change. It's a pretty minor point I was making anyway. Hickel really was a Republican at heart. He filed under the AIP the day before the filing deadline and the Republican lieutenant gubernatorial candidate jumped ship with something like twelve hours before the filing deadline to join his ticket, leaving the Republican candidate, Arliss Sturgelewski, with no running mate and no time to scrape one up. It made for good political theater.

Hickel won because the dem and repub candidates were almost exactly alike.

I don't recall who the Dem was. My one time meeting Sturgelewski (the republican who was left high and dry) she sat in a presentation that I was leading in an Anchorage museum and proceeded to repeat every single word I said like some sort of imbecile parrot. I understand she is actually an extremely intelligent woman, but she convinced me never to vote for her in the fifteen minutes I was in the same room as her.

On the other hand, when Don Young made fun of her name, she did have the presence of mind to fire back and call him "Yawn Dung," for which I have to give her some credit.

Chance Yohman|3.27.08 @ 11:22AM|#

I have no source, other than my Alaskan friend to back this up, but I have heard the AIP has some racist leanings. Other than that, I like their platform. I liked Alaska when I visited there in 2005. http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=4BCF2A9FA328281D

Untermensch|3.27.08 @ 11:29AM|#

but I have heard the AIP has some racist leanings.

Probably about like many libertarian gatherings that attract the fringe nativist/John Bircher type crowd. I don't recall AIP being particularly racist, although some of the folks who liked it probably were. But if there is a racism strain in Alaska that is particularly prominent, it's the ubiquitous anti-Native stereotyping that I heard from people who would never dream of saying anything negative about blacks, hispanics, or asians. But Eskimos were, apparently, fair game.

|3.27.08 @ 12:48PM|#

When Alaska secedes, will Siberia be susceptible to Anschluss?

|3.28.08 @ 1:47AM|#

Hey Garth -- if Sarah Palin were a textbook publishing company, her name would be Houghton MILFlin.