The ethics of Obama's and McCain's participation in activities of the Commission on Presidential Debates

Yes, it's true. Sarah Palin does not endorse the two-party system.

And I think that's a good thing.

When people weren't talking about the terrible way in which Sarah Palin tormented a poor drunken taser-wielding trooper, they were talking about how Sarah Palin supported treason. Or whatever.

And yes, there's evidence. While Sarah Palin was never a registered member of the Alaskan Independence Party, her husband was at one point, and the Party itself thought that she was also.

But the evidence? Palin certainly was warm to them.

The Daily Kos has posted a video and provided a transcript.



I’m Governor Sarah Palin and I am delighted to welcome you to the 2008 Alaskan Independence Party Convention in the golden heart city of Fairbanks. Your party plays an important role in our state’s politics. I’ve always said that competition is so good, and that applies to political parties as well.

We'll get back to this in a minute. Let me print the rest of the transcript:

I share your party’s vision of upholding the constitution of our great state. My administration remains focused on reining in government growth so individual liberty and opportunity can expand. I know you agree with that. We have a great promise to be a self-sufficient state, made up of the hardest-working, most grateful Americans in our nation. So as your convention gets underway I hope that you all are inspired by remembering that all those years ago, it was in this same city that Alaska’s constitution was born. And it was founded on hope and trust and liberty and opportunity. I carry that message of opportunity forward in my administration, as we continue to move our state ahead and create positive change. So I say good luck on a successful and inspiring convention. Keep up the good work, and God bless you.

In its printing, the Daily Kos emboldened words like "self-sufficient." We certainly can't have that.

And it's not just the Daily Kos. fyberoptic compares Sarah Palin to Aaron Burr:

[H]er and her husband have an involvement with the Alaskan Independence Party. This is a party who's motto is basically "Alaska First". And they're serious. They want to secede from the United States, using their oil money to help them become self-sufficient, and short of that happening, they want autonomy from the US government (and from the constitution). Did you know that people have been indicted for treason for being involved with plans to secede from the union? Ask Aaron Burr.

The Richmond Democrat asks Forget the vice presidency: does Sarah Palin even want to be an American?. (And yes, it was the Richmond Democrat that asked this. As in Richmond, Virginia. Site of the Museum of the Confederacy.)

So, as people continue to ask Palin, "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Alaskan Independence Party?" let's take a look at the Party's web site. I know that some of you may be afraid to do this, but let's take a look.

The Alaskan Independence Party's goal is the vote we were entitled to in 1958, one choice from among the following four alternatives:

1) Remain a Territory.
2) Become a separate and Independent Nation.
3) Accept Commonwealth status.
4) Become a State.

The call for this vote is in furtherance of the dream of the Alaskan Independence Party's founding father, Joe Vogler, which was for Alaskans to achieve independence under a minimal government, fully responsive to the people, promoting a peaceful and lawful means of resolving differences.

Well, of course we can't have self-determination. If they can't have self-determination in Ossetia, then we obviously can't have it in America.

But it turns out that the platform of the Alaskan Independence Party is the least of its sins. Let's take a look at what the Republicans for Obama have to say:

With news breaking that Palin was a member of the secessionist group, the AIP, before it became politically expediant to join the Republican Party, it comes to light that the AIP is a wing of the theocratic minded Constitution Party, whose stated mission is to "restore our government to its Constitutional limits and our law to its Biblical foundations.

Anyone familiar with the theology of "Christian Reconstructionism" or as it is sometimes called, "Dominion theology" that many adhere to in the Constitution Party is acquainted with the covert efforts to secure positions of power by espousing more mainstream Christian beliefs. It is logical to consider the AIP's directive to "infiltrate both parties" to achieve their goals is part and parcel of the theocratic agenda of the CP.

And the Constitution Party link is the real rub.

If there's one thing that unites the Republicans for Obama and the Democrats for McCain, it is that THE TWO-PARTY SYSTEM SHALL PREVAIL. Any deviance from the two-party system must be punished, and third parties must be kept out of elections.

This is why different rules were established for major and minor parties in Texas presidential elections, forcing third parties to register for the election ballot 70 days before the election, but allowing major parties to slip the date.

This is why Cumberland County (PA) Republican chairman Victor Stabile wants Bob Barr off of Pennsylvania's ballot.

This is why Cynthia McKinney is fighting to get on Ohio's ballot.

Brian Defferding wrote to USA Today:

Our country has completely slanted its system toward only two parties. We were a nation built upon the principles of free choice. What we have now is something far from that. An independent candidate running for president in 2008 needs to go state by state meeting requirements to get on the ballot. To be on every ballot, a third-party candidate would have to collect about 650,000 signatures nationwide.

Democratic and Republican candidates don't have to go through that arduous process to be on state ballots. While Barack Obama and John McCain spend money and time on attack ads, and for campaign flights and bus tours around the country, the third-party candidates are using that money and time struggling to collect enough signatures.

A good start to bring free choice back to the voters is to lower the signature requirements, making the minimum needed nationwide to 200,000, and have them apply across the board. That way, every party big or small would have the same chance.

What? Require the major parties to meet the same requirements as the other parties? We can't have that. Wouldn't a weakening of the two-party system be un-American?

I submit to you the election of 1860, in which the candidate of a particular political party became the President of the United States. This political party did not exist ten years previously, but the person that they elected has become a hero to his political party. You see his face every time you look at a five dollar bill.

Or perhaps we should look at the election of 1828, in which a one-party system (the Federalists had fallen apart earlier) fragmented into a bunch of small parties. One of those candidates won the election, and is now a hero to his political party. You see his face on the twenty dollar bill.

So I guess the question can be asked again - if Obama and McCain want to run a truly ethical campaign, why don't they allow a little competition?

Oh, and by the way, this isn't the first time that I've written about the Republican-Democratic stranglehold on politics. Here's something I wrote in 2004 about the Commission on Presidential Debates. And I noted how the Commission gerrymandered things in 2004:

The goal of the CPD's debates is to afford the members of the public an opportunity to sharpen their views, in a focused debate format, of those candidates from among whom the next President and Vice President will be selected. In each of the last four elections, there were scores of declared candidates for the Presidency, excluding those seeking the nomination of one of the major parties. During the course of the campaign, the candidates are afforded many opportunities in a great variety of forums to advance their candidacies. In order to most fully and fairly achieve the educational purposes of its debates, the CPD has developed nonpartisan, objective criteria upon which it will base its decisions regarding selection of the candidates to participate in its 2004 debates. The purpose of the criteria is to identify those candidates who have achieved a level of electoral support such that they realistically are considered to be among the principal rivals for the Presidency....

The CPD's second criterion requires that the candidate qualify to have his/her name appear on enough state ballots to have at least a mathematical chance of securing an Electoral College majority in the 2004 general election....

The CPD's third criterion requires that the candidate have a level of support of at least 15% (fifteen percent) of the national electorate as determined by five selected national public opinion polling organizations, using the average of those organizations' most recent publicly reported results at the time of the determination.

So in this year in which both major parties are committed to change, has the Commission on Presidential Debates loosened its rules for 2008?

The goal of the CPD's debates is to afford the members of the public an opportunity to sharpen their views, in a focused debate format, of those candidates from among whom the next President and Vice President will be selected. In each of the last five elections, there were scores of declared candidates for the Presidency, excluding those seeking the nomination of one of the major parties. During the course of the campaign, the candidates are afforded many opportunities in a great variety of forums to advance their candidacies. In order most fully and fairly to achieve the educational purposes of its debates, the CPD has developed nonpartisan, objective criteria upon which it will base its decisions regarding selection of the candidates to participate in its 2008 debates. The purpose of the criteria is to identify those candidates who have achieved a level of electoral support such that they realistically are considered to be among the principal rivals for the Presidency....

The CPD's second criterion requires that the candidate qualify to have his/her name appear on enough state ballots to have at least a mathematical chance of securing an Electoral College majority in the 2008 general election....

The CPD's third criterion requires that the candidate have a level of support of at least 15% (fifteen percent) of the national electorate as determined by five selected national public opinion polling organizations, using the average of those organizations' most recent publicly-reported results at the time of the determination.

Yup, 2008 is gerrymandered again. Perhaps we need...um...change.

[8 SEPTEMBER 2008 - SHARON COBB HAS WRITTEN A POST ENTITLED Sarah Palin And Her Husband Support UnAmerican Organization. AND YES, SHE USED THE WORD "TREASONOUS." IN MY COMMENT, I CONCLUDED: "So, while some say that it's un-American to support the Alaskan Independence Party, I say that it's more un-American to silence them."]

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