As detailed here and here, questions are arising as to whether McCain's candidate for vice-president was a member of or was in any way associated with the Alaskan Independence Party (AIP). The AIP is a political party whose aim, among other things, is to receive a vote on the secession of Alaska from the United States of America.
In this video, dated October of 2007, the Vice Chairman of the AIP claims that McCain's VP pick "was an AIP member":
"Our current governor who I mentioned at the last conference, the one we were hoping would get elected, Sarah Palin, did get elected . . . .and there was a lot of talk about her moving up. She was an AIP member before she got the job as mayor . . . "
Was McCain's VP pick truly a "member of the AIP," as the video claims? It could simply be a fringe organization trying to take credit for an electoral success. But if it isn't, and McCain's VP pick was ever a member of such a radical political party, then that is something that voters deserve to know.
As information about the AIP mounts, McCain's pick should clear the air. For example, if she was truly "a member" of the AIP before she was mayor, did she continue to be "a member" during her tenure as mayor? Did she attend the 2000 AIP Convention? Here's a resolution that was presented at that convention:
A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION PROPOSING THE DISSOLUTION OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IF CERTAIN CONDITIONS OCCUR
Those "conditions" include, among others, that the dissolution process should begin "if any federal order attempts to make it unlawful for individual Americans to own firearms or to confiscate firearms." The resolution also states that the federal government "has, for decades, violated [the Constitution] in both word and spirit" by "disposing of federal property without the approval of Congress [and] usurping jurisdiction from the states in such matters as abortion and firearms rights."
Even if the claim that McCan's VP pick was a member turns out to be false, why did McCain's VP pick record a message for this group's 2008 convention?
And leaving aside the question of her judgment recording a message for such a group, what does it say about McCain's judgment that he picked a person who would apparently affiliate herself with such an organization?