(Video: Interview with former Alaskan Independence Party chairman Mark Chryson)
Esther Kaplan, Investigative Editor for The Nation Institute, says:
While the McCain camp continues to hammer home Barack Obama's ties to a former '60s radical, the press corps has yet to report on how far-reaching Sarah Palin's ties are to contemporary radicals — specifically, the paranoid anti-government figures behind the Alaskan Independence Party. Reporters Max Blumenthal and David Neiwert found that AIP activists played a critical role in Palin's election as Wasilla mayor and that Palin in turn sought to reward them with plum political appointments and appearances, as recently as this year, at AIP conventions.
Their story, "Meet Sarah Palin's Radical Right-Wing Pals," below, was supported by a research grant from the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute and appeared this morning at Salon.com.