Most of the press coverage of Sarah and husband Palin's association with a weird Alaskan secessionist group, the Alaskan Independence Party (AIP), has been to note that, no, Sarah didn't formally belong to the group, but the husband did. No story. Nothing to see here. Please disperse.
This seems pretty weird to me (among many, many other things this cycle). If Jill Biden belonged to a Delaware Independence Party that had in recent years attempted to get a vote for secession on the ballot, whose meetings husband and VP candidate Joe attended in recent years along with Jill, wouldn't this be a pretty big deal? If Jill Biden belonged to a Delaware Independence Party, which backed Delaware seceeding from the U.S., and if husband and VP candidate Joe Biden attended such meetings while nonetheless lacking formal membership credentials, don't you think we'd be subjected to a wave of breathless flag-waving on Faux news and throughout the media along with breathless questions as to whether Jill was anti-American and whether the Bidens, and Obama as well because he picked Joe to be his VP, were sufficiently patriotic?
But I guess since Sarah and husband Palin are evangelical Christians, all this must be OK.
2 comments:
hah! :) love this example - there's something very funny about thinking about deleware wanting to secede from the union.
also must say that Jill Biden rules! Whenever she was listening to speeches during the convention, she looked to be so sincere and attentive. She'll be my favorite first VP lady ever!
The answer to both of your questions is a qualified "It is a strong probability,"
and the qualified rejoinder would be, "but we will never be able to prove that."
I'd like to go a little further to say that a spouse's political affiliations, and the attendance of a meeting without joining a political organization SHOULD NOT be a major political issue in ANY election, let alone one in which the issues at stake are so monumental.
I can think of nothing that such issue-manufacturing represents more than good old fashioned McCarthyism. In fact, should Democrats attempt to gin this thing up too far, that is likely exactly what they will charge.
And of course, the Democratic offenders will be cowed, mostly because a large number of them will agree with it, and they have functional consciences.
Republican operatives, on the other hand, will suffer no such pangs of guilt when they jusmp in with both feet the next time they see an opportunity to slime Obama using McCarthyite tactics. Lacking any sense of justice, conscience, or morals does offer certain advantages that way.
It is what they do best.
The sad thing is that Democrats have not yet perfected the process of packaging these concepts into catchy, easily digestible bite-size (or pureed) bits that "edge voters" will find appealing, easily understood, and internalized without effort.
That is actually the challenge facing the Democrats. Not to be like the Republicans: to expose the Republicans for what they are in a low-information, consumer-friendly way. (And they have to do so without the cooperation of the Republican's media machine.)
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