Politics is local unless you’re from the Outside looking in

They say politics is local but the reality is; it is local, but many times Outside influences come into play on local matters and those influences were best displayed when Sarah Palin was chosen to be Senator John McCain’s running mate.

Alaska for the most part, was viewed by many people in the Lower 48 as a place that was cold, was completely dark in the winter, people lived in Igloos and English was a second language. It wasn’t until Sarah Palin was chosen as the Vice Presidential candidate that people in the Lower 48, through the lens of the media, blogs and airwaves of talk radio were exposed to Alaska’s political and geographical landscape.

And because there is a very conservative independent streak that runs through Alaskans, that conservative independent streak was brought out when the media began to scrutinize Alaska politics through Sarah Palin and her husband Todd Palin.

It was surprising to see Todd Palin’s politics come under scrutiny by certain people in the media and by certain bloggers here in Alaska and in the Lower 48. They used his past party affiliation with the Alaska Independence Party (AIP) to cast him as some fringe person and somehow tried to equate Todd’s party affiliation and Sarah Palin’s comments made to the AIP, to Obama’s 20 years sitting in the pews of Rev. Wright’s church or palling around with an unrepentant domestic terrorist.

I too was a member of the AIP and I ran under the party banner for a state senate seat against Republican Dave Donley and since that time I have run under the Republican Party banner. And I can tell you that just because you are a member of the AIP, it does not mean you are on the fringe or you subscribe to the party’s entire platform. Or if you speak to the AIP as Sarah Palin did, it does not mean you endorse the words spoken by the founder of the party.

This applies to all parties and their members. In fact, I will show you in future articles how the fringe on the left here in Alaska are found supporting the Democrats and are displayed as the mainstream thinking in Alaska when they are not.

What I found interesting from media personalities like Keith Olbermann or Rachael Maddow from MSNBC was; when they were talking about Alaska’s political landscape and Sarah Palin, they did so with a sincere ignorance at the beginning.

But as time went on, they ended with making outright lies laced with facts and they sounded like a local actor in Fairbanks, waxing prose of tall tales of the Great White North or Soapy Smith episodes.



The narrative of those on the left went as so far as to state a lie in an ad that Sarah Palin was a member of the AIP when she wasn’t.



Trying to show a link between Obama palling around with Bill Ayers and Palin palling around with members with the AIP, was far-fetched and just plain dumb. Moreover, many of the members of the AIP are Alaskan Natives with one Alaskan Native, Carl Moses being a former AIP member elected to the state legislature.

Juxtapose left leaning blogger’s derogatory comments made against the AIP members with derogatory comments made by the same bloggers against Palin on her policies with the village of Emmonak and you will see the left stepping all over themselves with a hatred of Palin laced with their own bigotry towards Alaskan Natives that continues today.

There is an irony in that the left leaning bloggers here in Alaska who are regular guests on the Rachael Maddow show and Keith Olbermann’s Countdown, like to attack the AIP as a party made up of wingnuts and forget that the AIP has more registered members in the Alaskan Native village of Emmonak, than the Republican Party has.

And if a party’s founder is an indication of the party member’s sentiment is correct, then it must be pointed out since President Van Buren was one of the founders of the Democrat Party of today, one should ask about Van Buren's policies on Native Americans.

Maybe Alaskan Natives have a valid reason to be part of the AIP. History of the Democrat Party and their founders was not on their side.

To date, there hasn’t been a founder or a member from the AIP who espoused violence against America, or treated Native Americans/Alaskans poorly. And when you consider just recently, President Obama’s decision to end funding for retirement benefits of Alaskan Natives who served in WWII here in Alaska, well the silence of criticism from the left bloggers in Alaska towards President Obama’s decision proves my point.

The political landscape in Alaska is slowly changing and the progressives and left have not learned the art of modulating ones voice with reason and truth. Instead, Outside influences have infiltrated local politics in Alaska to where local politics are not considered local, but a political playground for Outside environmentalist organizations, Outside progressive organizations and their local supporters to play in.