Meet Sarah Palin’s radical right-wing pals
Extremists Mark Chryson and Steve Stoll helped launch Palin’s political career in Alaska, and in return had influence over policy. “Her door was open,” says Chryson — and still is.
Editor’s note: Research support provided by the Nation Institute Investigative Fund. For Salon’s complete coverage of Sarah Palin, click here.
By Max Blumenthal and David Neiwert
So long as Alaska remained under the boot of the federal government, said Chryson, the AIP had to stand on guard to stymie a New World Order. He invited a Salon reporter to see a few items inside his pickup truck that were intended for his personal protection. “This here is my attack dog,” he said with a chuckle, handing the reporter an exuberant 8-pound papillon from his passenger seat. “Her name is Suzy.” Then he pulled a 9-millimeter Makarov PM pistol — once the standard-issue sidearm for Soviet cops — out of his glove compartment. “I’ve got enough weaponry to raise a small army in my basement,” he said, clutching the gun in his palm. “Then again, so do most Alaskans.” But Chryson added a message of reassurance to residents of that faraway place some Alaskans call “the 48.” “We want to go our separate ways,” he said, “but we are not going to kill you.”
Though Chryson belongs to a fringe political party, one that advocates the secession of Alaska from the Union, and that organizes with other like-minded secessionist movements from Canada to the Deep South, he is not without peculiar influence in state politics, especially the rise of Sarah Palin. An obscure figure outside of Alaska, Chryson has been a political fixture in the hometown of the Republican vice-presidential nominee for over a decade. During the 1990s, when Chryson directed the AIP, he and another radical right-winger, Steve Stoll, played a quiet but pivotal role in electing Palin as mayor of Wasilla and shaping her political agenda afterward. Both Stoll and Chryson not only contributed to Palin’s campaign financially, they played major behind-the-scenes roles in the Palin camp before, during and after her victory.
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Palin backed Chryson as he successfully advanced a host of anti-tax, pro-gun initiatives, including one that altered the state Constitution’s language to better facilitate the formation of anti-government militias. She joined in their vendetta against several local officials they disliked, and listened to their advice about hiring. She attempted to name Stoll, a John Birch Society activist known in the Mat-Su Valley as “Black Helicopter Steve,” to an empty Wasilla City Council seat. “Every time I showed up her door was open,” said Chryson. “And that policy continued when she became governor.”
When Chryson first met Sarah Palin, however, he didn’t really trust her politically. It was the early 1990s, when he was a member of a local libertarian pressure group called SAGE, or Standing Against Government Excess. (SAGE’s founder, Tammy McGraw, was Palin’s birth coach.) Palin was a leader in a pro-sales-tax citizens group called WOW, or Watch Over Wasilla, earning a political credential before her 1992 campaign for City Council. Though he was impressed by her interpersonal skills, Chryson greeted Palin’s election warily, thinking she was too close to the Democrats on the council and too pro-tax.
But soon, Palin and Chryson discovered they could be useful to each other. Palin would be running for mayor, while Chryson was about to take over the chairmanship of the Alaska Independence Party, which at its peak in 1990 had managed to elect a governor.
The AIP was born of the vision of “Old Joe” Vogler, a hard-bitten former gold miner who hated the government of the United States almost as much as he hated wolves and environmentalists. His resentment peaked during the early 1970s when the federal government began installing Alaska’s oil and gas pipeline. Fueled by raw rage — “The United States has made a colony of Alaska,” he told author John McPhee in 1977 — Vogler declared a maverick candidacy for the governorship in 1982. Though he lost, Old Joe became a force to be reckoned with, as well as a constant source of amusement for Alaska’s political class. During a gubernatorial debate in 1982, Vogler proposed using nuclear weapons to obliterate the glaciers blocking roadways to Juneau. “There’s gold under there!” he exclaimed.
Vogler made another failed run for the governor’s mansion in 1986. But the AIP’s fortunes shifted suddenly four years later when Vogler convinced Richard Nixon’s former interior secretary, Wally Hickel, to run for governor under his party’s banner. Hickel coasted to victory, outflanking a moderate Republican and a centrist Democrat. An archconservative Republican running under the AIP candidate, Jack Coghill, was elected lieutenant governor.
Hickel’s subsequent failure as governor to press for a vote on Alaskan independence rankled Old Joe. With sponsorship from the Islamic Republic of Iran, Vogler was scheduled to present his case for Alaskan secession before the United Nations General Assembly in the late spring of 1993. But before he could, Old Joe’s long, strange political career ended tragically that May when he was murdered by a fellow secessionist.
Hickel rejoined the Republican Party the year after Vogler’s death and didn’t run for reelection. Lt. Gov. Coghill’s campaign to succeed him as the AIP candidate for governor ended in disaster; he peeled away just enough votes from the Republican, Jim Campbell, to throw the gubernatorial election to Democrat Tony Knowles.
Despite the disaster, Coghill hung on as AIP chairman for three more years. When he was asked to resign in 1997, Mark Chryson replaced him. Chryson pursued a dual policy of cozying up to secessionist and right-wing groups in Alaska and elsewhere while also attempting to replicate the AIP’s success with Hickel in infiltrating the mainstream.
Unlike some radical right-wingers, Chryson doesn’t put forward his ideas freighted with anger or paranoia. And in a state where defense of gun and property rights often takes on a real religious fervor, Chryson was able to present himself as a typical Alaskan.
He rose through party ranks by reducing the AIP’s platform to a single page that “90 percent of Alaskans could agree with.” This meant scrubbing the old platform of what Chryson called “racist language” while accommodating the state’s growing Christian right movement by emphasizing the AIP’s commitment to the “traditional family.”
“The AIP is very family-oriented,” Chryson explained. “We’re for the traditional family — daddy, mommy, kids — because we all know that it was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. And we don’t care if Heather has two mommies. That’s not a traditional family.”
Chryson further streamlined the AIP’s platform by softening its secessionist language. Instead of calling for immediate separation from the United States, the platform now demands a vote on independence.
Yet Chryson maintains that his party remains committed to full independence. “The Alaskan Independence Party has got links to almost every independence-minded movement in the world,” Chryson exclaimed. “And Alaska is not the only place that’s about separation. There’s at least 30 different states that are talking about some type of separation from the United States.”
This has meant rubbing shoulders and forging alliances with outright white supremacists and far-right theocrats, particularly those who dominate the proceedings at such gatherings as the North American Secessionist conventions, which AIP delegates have attended in recent years. The AIP’s affiliation with neo-Confederate organizations is motivated as much by ideological affinity as by organizational convenience. Indeed, Chryson makes no secret of his sympathy for the Lost Cause. “Should the Confederate states have been allowed to separate and go their peaceful ways?” Chryson asked rhetorically. “Yes. The War of Northern Aggression, or the Civil War, or the War Between the States — however you want to refer to it — was not about slavery, it was about states’ rights.”
Another far-right organization with whom the AIP has long been aligned is Howard Phillips’ militia-minded Constitution Party. The AIP has been listed as the Constitution Party’s state affiliate since the late 1990s, and it has endorsed the Constitution Party’s presidential candidates (Michael Peroutka and Chuck Baldwin) in the past two elections.
The Constitution Party boasts an openly theocratic platform that reads, “It is our goal to limit the federal government to its delegated, enumerated, Constitutional functions and to restore American jurisprudence to its original Biblical common-law foundations.” In its 1990s incarnation as the U.S. Taxpayers Party, it was on the front lines in promoting the “militia” movement, and a significant portion of its membership comprises former and current militia members.
At its 1992 convention, the AIP hosted both Phillips — the USTP’s presidential candidate — and militia-movement leader Col. James “Bo” Gritz, who was campaigning for president under the banner of the far-right Populist Party. According to Chryson, AIP regulars heavily supported Gritz, but the party deferred to Phillips’ presence and issued no official endorsements.
In Wasilla, the AIP became powerful by proxy — because of Chryson and Stoll’s alliance with Sarah Palin. Chryson and Stoll had found themselves in constant opposition to policies of Wasilla’s Democratic mayor, who started his three-term, nine-year tenure in 1987. By 1992, Chryson and Stoll had begun convening regular protests outside City Council. Their demonstrations invariably involved grievances against any and all forms of “socialist government,” from city planning to public education. Stoll shared Chryson’s conspiratorial views: “The rumor was that he had wrapped his guns in plastic and buried them in his yard so he could get them after the New World Order took over,” Stein told a reporter.
Chryson did not trust Palin when she joined the City Council in 1992. He claimed that she was handpicked by Democratic City Council leaders and by Wasilla’s Democratic mayor, John Stein, to rubber-stamp their tax hike proposals. “When I first met her,” he said, “I thought she was extremely left. But I’ve watched her slowly as she’s become more pronounced in her conservative ideology.”
Palin was well aware of Chryson’s views. “She knew my beliefs,” Chryson said. “The entire state knew my beliefs. I wasn’t afraid of being on the news, on camera speaking my views.”
But Chryson believes she trusted his judgment because he accurately predicted what life on the City Council would be like. “We were telling her, ‘This is probably what’s going to happen,’” he said. “‘The city is going to give this many people raises, they’re going to pave everybody’s roads, and they’re going to pave the City Council members’ roads.’ We couldn’t have scripted it better because everything we predicted came true.”
After intense evangelizing by Chryson and his allies, they claimed Palin as a convert. “When she started taking her job seriously,” Chryson said, “the people who put her in as the rubber stamp found out the hard way that she was not going to go their way.” In 1994, Sarah Palin attended the AIP’s statewide convention. In 1995, her husband, Todd, changed his voter registration to AIP. Except for an interruption of a few months, he would remain registered was an AIP member until 2002, when he changed his registration to undeclared.
In 1996, Palin decided to run against John Stein as the Republican candidate for mayor of Wasilla. While Palin pushed back against Stein’s policies, particularly those related to funding public works, Chryson said he and Steve Stoll prepared the groundwork for her mayoral campaign.
Chryson and Stoll viewed Palin’s ascendancy as a vehicle for their own political ambitions. “She got support from these guys,” Stein remarked. “I think smart politicians never utter those kind of radical things, but they let other people do it for them. I never recall Sarah saying she supported the militia or taking a public stand like that. But these guys were definitely behind Sarah, thinking she was the more conservative choice.”
“They worked behind the scenes,” said Stein. “I think they had a lot of influence in terms of helping with the back-scatter negative campaigning.”
Indeed, Chryson boasted that he and his allies urged Palin to focus her campaign on slashing character-based attacks. For instance, Chryson advised Palin to paint Stein as a sexist who had told her “to just sit there and look pretty” while she served on Wasilla’s City Council. Though Palin never made this accusation, her 1996 campaign for mayor was the most negative Wasilla residents had ever witnessed.
While Palin played up her total opposition to the sales tax and gun control — the two hobgoblins of the AIP — mailers spread throughout the town portraying her as “the Christian candidate,” a subtle suggestion that Stein, who is Lutheran, might be Jewish. “I watched that campaign unfold, bringing a level of slime our community hadn’t seen until then,” recalled Phil Munger, a local music teacher who counts himself as a close friend of Stein.
“This same group [Stoll and Chryson] also [publicly] challenged me on whether my wife and I were married because she had kept her maiden name,” Stein bitterly recalled. “So we literally had to produce a marriage certificate. And as I recall, they said, ‘Well, you could have forged that.’”
When Palin won the election, the men who had once shouted anti-government slogans outside City Hall now had a foothold inside the mayor’s office. Palin attempted to pay back her newfound pals during her first City Council meeting as mayor. In that meeting, on Oct. 14, 1996, she appointed Stoll to one of the City Council’s two newly vacant seats. But Palin was blocked by the single vote of then-Councilman Nick Carney, who had endured countless rancorous confrontations with Stoll and considered him a “violent” influence on local politics. Though Palin considered consulting attorneys about finding another means of placing Stoll on the council, she was ultimately forced to back down and accept a compromise candidate.
Emboldened by his nomination by Mayor Palin, Stoll later demanded she fire Wasilla’s museum director, John Cooper, a personal enemy he longed to sabotage. Palin obliged, eliminating Cooper’s position in short order. “Gotcha, Cooper!” Stoll told the deposed museum director after his termination, as Cooper told a reporter for the New York Times. “And it only cost me a campaign contribution.” Stoll, who donated $1,000 to Palin’s mayoral campaign, did not respond to numerous requests for an interview. Palin has blamed budget concerns for Cooper’s departure.
The following year, when Carney proposed a local gun-control measure, Palin organized with Chryson to smother the nascent plan in its cradle. Carney’s proposed ordinance would have prohibited residents from carrying guns into schools, bars, hospitals, government offices and playgrounds. Infuriated by the proposal that Carney viewed as a common-sense public-safety measure, Chryson and seven allies stormed a July 1997 council meeting.
With the bill still in its formative stages, Carney was not even ready to present it to the council, let alone conduct public hearings on it. He and other council members objected to the ad-hoc hearing as “a waste of time.” But Palin — in plain violation of council rules and norms — insisted that Chryson testify, stating, according to the minutes, that “she invites the public to speak on any issue at any time.”
When Carney tried later in the meeting to have the ordinance discussed officially at the following regular council meeting, he couldn’t even get a second. His proposal died that night, thanks to Palin and her extremist allies.
“A lot of it was the ultra-conservative far right that is against everything in government, including taxes,” recalled Carney. “A lot of it was a personal attack on me as being anti-gun, and a personal attack on anybody who deigned to threaten their authority to carry a loaded firearm wherever they pleased. That was the tenor of it. And it was being choreographed by Steve Stoll and the mayor.”
Asked if he thought it was Palin who had instigated the turnout, he replied: “I know it was.”
By Chryson’s account, he and Palin also worked hand-in-glove to slash property taxes and block a state proposal that would have taken money for public programs from the Permanent Fund Dividend, or the oil and gas fund that doles out annual payments to citizens of Alaska. Palin endorsed Chryson’s unsuccessful initiative to move the state Legislature from Juneau to Wasilla. She also lent her support to Chryson’s crusade to alter the Alaska Constitution’s language on gun rights so cities and counties could not impose their own restrictions. “It took over 10 years to get that language written in,” Chryson said. “But Sarah [Palin] was there supporting it.”
“With Sarah as a mayor,” said Chryson, “there were a number of times when I just showed up at City Hall and said, ‘Hey, Sarah, we need help.’ I think there was only one time when I wasn’t able to talk to her and that was because she was in a meeting.”
Chryson says the door remains open now that Palin is governor. (Palin’s office did not respond to Salon’s request for an interview.) While Palin has been more circumspect in her dealings with groups like the AIP as she has risen through the political ranks, she has stayed in touch.
When Palin ran for governor in 2006, marketing herself as a fresh-faced reformer determined to crush the GOP’s ossified power structure, she made certain to appear at the AIP’s state convention. To burnish her maverick image, she also tapped one-time AIP member and born-again Republican Walter Hickel as her campaign co-chair. Hickel barnstormed the state for Palin, hailing her support for an “all-Alaska” liquefied gas pipeline, a project first promoted in 2002 by an AIP gubernatorial candidate named Nels Anderson. When Palin delivered her victory speech on election night, Hickel stood beaming by her side. “I made her governor,” he boasted afterward. Two years later, Hickel has endorsed Palin’s bid for vice president.
Just months before Palin burst onto the national stage as McCain’s vice-presidential nominee, she delivered a videotaped address to the AIP’s annual convention. Her message was scrupulously free of secessionist rhetoric, but complementary nonetheless. “I share your party’s vision of upholding the Constitution of our great state,” Palin told the assembly of AIP delegates. “My administration remains focused on reining in government growth so individual liberty can expand. I know you agree with that … Keep up the good work and God bless you.”
When Palin became the Republican vice-presidential nominee, her attendance of the 1994 and 2006 AIP conventions and her husband’s membership in the party (as well as Palin’s videotaped welcome to the AIP’s 2008 convention) generated a minor controversy. Chryson claimed, however, that Sarah and Todd Palin never even played a minor role in his party’s internal affairs. “Sarah’s never been a member of the Alaskan Independence Party,” Chryson insisted. “Todd has, but most of rural Alaska has too. I never saw him at a meeting. They were at one meeting I was at. Sarah said hello, but I didn’t pay attention because I was taking care of business.”
But whether the Palins participated directly in shaping the AIP’s program is less relevant than the extent to which they will implement that program. Chryson and his allies have demonstrated just as much interest in grooming major party candidates as they have in putting forward their own people. At a national convention of secessionist groups in 2007, AIP vice chairman Dexter Clark announced that his party would seek to “infiltrate” the Democratic and Republican parties with candidates sympathetic to its hard-right, secessionist agenda. “You should use that tactic. You should infiltrate,” Clark told his audience of neo-Confederates, theocrats and libertarians. “Whichever party you think in that area you can get something done, get into that party. Even though that party has its problems, right now that is the only avenue.”
Clark pointed to Palin’s political career as the model of a successful infiltration. “There’s a lot of talk of her moving up,” Clark said of Palin. “She was a member [of the AIP] when she was mayor of a small town, that was a nonpartisan job. But to get along and to go along she switched to the Republican Party … She is pretty well sympathetic because of her membership.”
Clark’s assertion that Palin was once a card-carrying AIP member was swiftly discredited by the McCain campaign, which produced records showing she had been a registered Republican since 1988. But then why would Clark make such a statement? Why did he seem confident that Palin was a true-blue AIP activist burrowing within the Republican Party? The most salient answer is that Palin was once so thoroughly embedded with AIP figures like Chryson and Stoll and seemed so enthusiastic about their agenda, Clark may have simply assumed she belonged to his party.
Now, Palin is a household name and her every move is scrutinized by the Washington press corps. She can no longer afford to kibitz with secessionists, however instrumental they may have been to her meteoric ascendancy. This does not trouble her old AIP allies. Indeed, Chryson is hopeful that Palin’s inauguration will also represent the start of a new infiltration.
“I’ve had my issues but she’s still staying true to her core values,” Chryson concluded. “Sarah’s friends don’t all agree with her, but do they respect her? Do they respect her ideology and her values? Definitely.”
From The Nation
The photograph substantiates reports that in late August, 2006, McCain celebrated his 70th birthday aboard a yacht, the Celine Ashley, rented by A-list con man Raffaello Follieri and his then-movie star girlfriend Anne Hathaway. In the current edition ofVanity Fair, Michael Schnayersonreported that Follieri rented the Celine Ashley for the month of August 2006. Montenegro's leading dailynewspaper, Vijesti, earlier reported that during McCain's visit in 2006 he celebrated with birthday cocktails and sweets aboard the Celine Ashley yacht. In the photograph, taken in Montenegro at the end of August, McCain is shown boarding the yacht ramp towards the smiling Follieri and Hathaway. Just ahead of McCain and shaking hands with Follieri appears to be Rick Davis--McCain's top aide and now co-manager of his campaign, who accompanied him on the trip and advised the government of Montenegro. A few months after McCain's yacht party, Follieri strengthened his ties to McCain's orbit by retaining Rick Davis's well-connected Washington lobbying firm, Davis Manafort, and offering Davis both an investment deal and help in securing the Catholic vote for McCain's presidential bid.
Follieri, who posed as Vatican chief financial officer in order to win friends and investments, pleaded guilty Wednesday in a Manhattan district court to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, eight counts of wire fraud and five counts of money laundering. As part of the plea, Follieri admitted to misappropriating at least $2.4 million of investor money and redirecting it to foreign personal bank accounts that were disguised as business accounts.
At the time he met McCain, Follieri was adept at collecting friends in powerful places and using those connections to attract investments in projects which later turned out to be bogus. His ties to Bill Clinton and his entourage have been well-documented; the charismatic Follieri, whom Vanity Fair has likened to an ambitious nineteenth-century protagonist from a Balzac novel, ingratiated himself to President Clinton and aides by posing as a mega-donor to the Clinton Global Initiative. He also formed an investment partnership with California business mogul and Clinton donor Ron Burkle to develop surplus real estate properties owned by the Catholic Church, which Follieri claimed to represent. Burkle later sued Follieri for $1.3 million in misappropriated funds.
Yet Follieri's ties to McCain's orbit have been largely overlooked by the media. Follieri first met McCain when the Arizona Senator visited Montenegro from August 29-31 as part of a Congressional delegation that included Republican senators Lindsay Graham, Richard Burr, Saxby Chambliss, Mel Martinez and John Sununu. [We'll have more on what else McCain was doing in Montenegro in a forthcoming article in the print edition of The Nation.]
What, exactly, was McCain doing aboard Follieri's yacht? Or put another way, was this McCain's 70th birthday wish--to spend an evening floating on the Adriatic with one of Hollywood's top actresses and her smooth-talking Italian beau?
An even bigger mystery is how Follieri's boat came to be docked in Montenegro on McCain's birthday. According to a journalist in Montenegro, the yacht had been anchored there for several days before McCain's arrival, and only sailed away after McCain boarded. According to Vijesti, locals were told that McCain was meeting "friends from Florida" on the yacht.
McCain aides later confirmed the encounter with Follieri, but said it was "entirely social and nothing came of it." Follieri, they toldthe New York Daily News, was just a "passing acquaintance." (Though the McCain campaign promise to comment on the encounter, it did not respond to The Nation's request by the time this article was published.)
It must not have seemed that way to Follieri. According to the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, in January 2007 Follieri sent Rick Davis a packet of information on his companies Follieri Capital and Follieri Media, apparently hoping to get financing from Pegasus Capital Advisors, a hedge fund in Connecticut that Davis represented. "Follieri's proposal to Davis had two dimensions to it--first, as an investment opportunity for Davis's fund; but secondly, there was the political dimension, in which Follieri offered to help deliver Catholic votes to McCain," said Claudio Gatti, a reporter for Il Sole 24 Ore, who investigated Follieri for eighteen months.
In February 2007, according to a recent article in the New YorkDaily News, Follieri retained Davis's lobbying firm, Davis Manafort. According to the paper, "on Feb. 27, 2007, Davis Manafort partner Rick Gates signed a confidentiality agreement drafted by the Follieri Group. In the contract...Gates agreed not to disclose any information about Follieri's deal to get Clinton pal Ron Burkle to buy Catholic Church properties." (Gates did not respond to repeated requests for comment.)
Two months later, Burkle sued Follieri, who later repaid the $1.3 million owed to Burkle's Yucaipa Funds. That fall, the Wall Street Journal exposed Follieri's life as a high-society con man. In June of this year, Follieri was finally arrested and charged. Following his guilty plea this week, Follieri now faces up to five years and three months in jail
Courtesy of the Carpet Bagger Report I've posted a list of McCain's flip flops. The Republicans love to ask the question "What does Obama stand for" ? Given this list, I'd love to know what McCain stands for beside more of the same policies of Bush.
Here’s the list.
National Security Policy
1. McCain thought Bush’s warrantless-wiretap program circumvented the law; now he believes the opposite.
2. McCain insisted that everyone, even “terrible killers,” “the worst kind of scum of humanity,” and detainees at Guantanamo Bay, “deserve to have some adjudication of their cases,” even if that means “releasing some of them.” McCain now believes the opposite.
3. He opposed indefinite detention of terrorist suspects. When the Supreme Court reached the same conclusion, he called it “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”
4. In February 2008, McCain reversed course on prohibiting waterboarding.
5. McCain was for closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay before he was against it.
6. When Barack Obama talked about going after terrorists in Pakistani mountains with predators, McCain criticized him for it. He’s since come to the opposite conclusion.
Foreign Policy
7. McCain was for kicking Russia out of the G8 before he was against it. Now, he’s for it again.
8. McCain supported moving “towards normalization of relations” with Cuba. Now he believes the opposite.
9. McCain believed the U.S. should engage in diplomacy with Hamas. Now he believes the opposite.
10. McCain believed the U.S. should engage in diplomacy with Syria. Now he believes the opposite.
11. McCain is both for and against a “rogue state rollback” as a focus of his foreign policy vision.
12. McCain used to champion the Law of the Sea convention, even volunteering to testify on the treaty’s behalf before a Senate committee. Now he opposes it.
13. McCain was against divestment from South Africa before he was for it.
Military Policy
14. McCain recently claimed that he was the “greatest critic” of Rumsfeld’s failed Iraq policy. In December 2003, McCain praised the same strategy as “a mission accomplished.” In March 2004, he said, “I’m confident we’re on the right course.” In December 2005, he said, “Overall, I think a year from now, we will have made a fair amount of progress if we stay the course.”
15. McCain has changed his mind about a long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq on multiple occasions, concluding, on multiple occasions, that a Korea-like presence is both a good and a bad idea.
16. McCain was against additional U.S. forces in Afghanistan before he was for it.
17. McCain said before the war in Iraq, “We will win this conflict. We will win it easily.” Four years later, McCain said he knew all along that the war in Iraq war was “probably going to be long and hard and tough.”
18. McCain has repeatedly said it’s a dangerous mistake to tell the “enemy” when U.S. troops would be out of Iraq. In May, McCain announced that most American troops would be home from Iraq by 2013.
19. McCain was against expanding the GI Bill before he was for it.
20. McCain staunchly opposed Obama’s Iraq withdrawal timetable, and even blasted Mitt Romney for having referenced the word during the GOP primaries. In July, after Iraqi officials endorsed Obama’s policy, McCain said a 16-month calendar sounds like “a pretty good timetable.”
Domestic Policy
21. McCain defended “privatizing” Social Security. Now he says he’s against privatization (though he actually still supports it.)
22. On Social Security, McCain said he would not, under any circumstances, raise taxes. Soon after, asked about a possible increase in the payroll tax, McCain said there’s “nothing that’s off the table.”
23. McCain wanted to change the Republican Party platform to protect abortion rights in cases of rape and incest. Now he doesn’t.
24. McCain supported storing spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Now he believes the opposite.
25. He argued the NRA should not have a role in the Republican Party’s policy making. Now he believes the opposite.
26. In 1998, he championed raising cigarette taxes to fund programs to cut underage smoking, insisting that it would prevent illnesses and provide resources for public health programs. Now, McCain opposes a $0.61-per-pack tax increase, won’t commit to supporting a regulation bill he’s co-sponsoring, and has hired Philip Morris’ former lobbyist as his senior campaign adviser.
27. McCain is both for and against earmarks for Arizona.
28. McCain’s first mortgage plan was premised on the notion that homeowners facing foreclosure shouldn’t be “rewarded” for acting “irresponsibly.” His second mortgage plan took largely the opposite position.
29. McCain went from saying gay marriage should be allowed, to saying gay marriage shouldn’t be allowed.
30. McCain opposed a holiday to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., before he supported it.
31. McCain was anti-ethanol. Now he’s pro-ethanol.
32. McCain was both for and against state promotion of the Confederate flag.
33. In 2005, McCain endorsed intelligent design creationism, a year later he said the opposite, and a few months after that, he was both for and against creationism at the same time.
34. And on gay adoption, McCain initially said he’d rather let orphans go without families, then his campaign reversed course, and soon after, McCain reversed back.
35. In the Senate, McCain opposed a variety of measures on equal pay for women, and endorsed the Supreme Court’s Ledbetter decision. In July, however, McCain said, “I’m committed to making sure that there’s equal pay for equal work. That … is my record and you can count on it.”
36. McCain was against fully funding the No Child Left Behind Act before he was for it.
37. McCain was for affirmative action before he was against it.
Economic Policy
38. McCain was against Bush’s tax cuts for the very wealthy before he was for them.
39. John McCain initially argued that economics is not an area of expertise for him, saying, “I’m going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues; I still need to be educated,” and “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should.” He now falsely denies ever having made these remarks and insists that he has a “very strong” understanding of economics.
40. McCain vowed, if elected, to balance the federal budget by the end of his first term. Soon after, he decided he would no longer even try to reach that goal. And soon after that, McCain abandoned his second position and went back to his first.
41. McCain said in 2005 that he opposed the tax cuts because they were “too tilted to the wealthy.” By 2007, he denied ever having said this, and falsely argued that he opposed the cuts because of increased government spending.
42. McCain thought the estate tax was perfectly fair. Now he believes the opposite.
43. McCain pledged in February 2008 that he would not, under any circumstances, raise taxes. Specifically, McCain was asked if he is a “‘read my lips’ candidate, no new taxes, no matter what?” referring to George H.W. Bush’s 1988 pledge. “No new taxes,” McCain responded. Two weeks later, McCain said, “I’m not making a ‘read my lips’ statement, in that I will not raise taxes.”
44. McCain has changed his entire economic worldview on multiple occasions.
45. McCain believes Americans are both better and worse off economically than they were before Bush took office.
Energy Policy
46. McCain supported the moratorium on coastal drilling ; now he’s against it.
47. McCain recently announced his strong opposition to a windfall-tax on oil company profits. Three weeks earlier, he was perfectly comfortable with the idea.
48. McCain endorsed a cap-and-trade policy with a mandatory emissions cap. In mid-June, McCain announced he wants the caps to voluntary.
49. McCain explained his belief that a temporary suspension of the federal gas tax would provide an immediate economic stimulus. Shortly thereafter, he argued the exact opposite.
50. McCain supported the Lieberman/Warner legislation to combat global warming. Now he doesn’t.
51. McCain was for national auto emissions standards before he was against them.
Immigration Policy
52. McCain was a co-sponsor of the DREAM Act, which would grant legal status to illegal immigrants’ kids who graduate from high school. In 2007, he announced his opposition to the bill. In 2008, McCain switched back.
53. On immigration policy in general, McCain announced in February 2008 that he would vote against his own bill.
54. In April, McCain promised voters that he would secure the borders “before proceeding to other reform measures.” Two months later, he abandoned his public pledge, pretended that he’d never made the promise in the first place, and vowed that a comprehensive immigration reform policy has always been, and would always be, his “top priority.”
Judicial Policy and the Rule of Law
55. McCain said he would “not impose a litmus test on any nominee.” He used to promise the opposite.
56. McCain’s position was that the telecoms should be forced to explain their role in the administration’s warrantless surveillance program as a condition for retroactive immunity. He used to believe the opposite.
57. McCain went from saying he would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade to saying the exact opposite.
58 In June, McCain rejected the idea of a trial for Osama bin Laden, and thought Obama’s reference to Nuremberg was a misread of history. A month later, McCain argued the exact opposite position.
59. In June, McCain described the Supreme Court’s decision in Boumediene v. Bush was “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.” In August, he reversed course.
Campaign, Ethics, and Lobbying Reform
60. McCain supported his own lobbying-reform legislation from 1997. Now he doesn’t.
61. In 2006, McCain sponsored legislation to require grassroots lobbying coalitions to reveal their financial donors. In 2007, after receiving “feedback” on the proposal, McCain told far-right activist groups that he opposes his own measure.
62. McCain supported a campaign-finance bill, which bore his name, on strengthening the public-financing system. In June 2007, he abandoned his own legislation.
63. In May 2008, McCain approved a ban on lobbyists working for his campaign. In July 2008, his campaign reversed course and said lobbyists could work for his campaign.
Politics and Associations
64. McCain wanted political support from radical televangelist John Hagee. Now he doesn’t. (He also believes his endorsement from Hagee was both a good and bad idea.)
65. McCain wanted political support from radical televangelist Rod Parsley. Now he doesn’t.
66. McCain says he considered and did not consider joining John Kerry’s Democratic ticket in 2004.
67. McCain is both for and against attacking Barack Obama over his former pastor at his former church.
68. McCain criticized TV preacher Jerry Falwell as “an agent of intolerance” in 2002, but then decided to cozy up to the man who said Americans “deserved” the 9/11 attacks.
69. In 2000, McCain accused Texas businessmen Sam and Charles Wyly of being corrupt, spending “dirty money” to help finance Bush’s presidential campaign. McCain not only filed a complaint against the Wylys for allegedly violating campaign finance law, he also lashed out at them publicly. In April, McCain reached out to the Wylys for support.
70. McCain was against presidential candidates campaigning at Bob Jones University before he was for it.
71. McCain decided in 2000 that he didn’t want anything to do with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, believing he “would taint the image of the ‘Straight Talk Express.’” Kissinger is now the Honorary Co-Chair for his presidential campaign in New York.
72. McCain believed powerful right-wing activist/lobbyist Grover Norquist was “corrupt, a shill for dictators, and (with just a dose of sarcasm) Jack Abramoff’s gay lover.” McCain now considers Norquist a key political ally.
73. McCain was for presidential candidates giving speeches in foreign countries before he was against it.
74. McCain has been both for and against considering a pro-choice running mate for the Republican presidential ticket.
I read a great article over at Huffington Post on the significance of early voting. Here is the article.
Yesterday, Ohio instituted same-day voter registration and an early voting window effective this year. Doing so has created a serious problem for John McCain (R) since his campaign doesn't have the infrastructure, organization, or enthusiasm to take advantage of this opportunity, particularly among college students.
As a result of its action, Ohio became the 31st state that allows early voting without an excuse (some states allow it only when a voter has a specific reason, like being out of town on Election Day). And while most states allow early voting beginning about 15 days before the general election, some have much longer windows. Ohio will allow voting as early as September 30. Iowa's window opens 40 days out, Montana and Maine are 30 days out, Wisconsin 21 days out, North Carolina 19 days out, and Nevada and New Mexico allow early voting 17 days out.
All told, 15 states that are considered competitive this year offer some form of unrestricted early voting.
But the thing you must keep in mind is that the benefit to the presidential campaigns of early voting can only be accomplished if it has a state organization that is capable of program to "bank" a meaningful number of early votes, so that it can focus its attention to more traditional GOTV tasks in the final week. Without an ample organization, a campaign is limited to simply encouraging its supporters to vote early. Only with a fairly large organization can a campaign can actually identify, push, and follow-up with those supporters who pledged to vote early.
So, let's take a look at the organizations in each of these states by the presidential candidates.
Thanks to Nate Silver's efforts, we know how many offices the Obama campaign has opened versus the numbers opened by McCain and state Republican parties (Unlike Obama, McCain is largely relying on GOP-run efforts):
State Field Offices
Obama McCain
Alaska 4 0
Colorado 10 1
Florida 25 35
Georgia 11 0
Indiana 14 0
Iowa 23 6
Maine 6 1
Montana 6 0
Nevada 6 1
New Mexico 18 1
North Carolina 11 0
North Dakota 4 0
Ohio 33 9
South Dakota 0 0
Wisconsin 23 6
Remarkably, McCain/GOP have zero, or only one, office opened in 10 of these 15 critical states.
Among those 10 states no real McCain presence are Colorado, Indiana, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, and North Dakota -- all of which are currently considered Toss-Up states (or very slightly leaning McCain) and all which voted for Bush in 2004. Together, just these 7 early-voting toss-up states account for 51 electoral votes, yet Obama has opened 61 offices versus a total of just 3 for McCain/GOP.
There are barely 80 days until the November election, and barely a month before early-voting begins in some of these states, yet the McCain campaign seems remarkably unwilling or unprepared to build crucial statewide organizations in these hyper-competitive red states.
Considering that the Bush-Cheney team prided itself on the size and strength of its field operation, it's really mind-boggling that the B team running the McCain operation (and, apparently, the RNC) is ceding such a massive on-the-ground strategic advantage to the Obama campaign, arguably the best organization ever assembled and battle-tested in presidential campaign history, especially for a challenger.
No doubt, the Obama team is spanning dozens of states with hundreds of offices ready to execute its marching orders to 1) identify supporters, 2) register new voters, 3) bank as many early votes as possible, and 4) turnout their remaining supporters on Election Day -- just as they did in the primaries.
Meanwhile, check out this incredible response by the McCain team to this enormous organizational disparity:
“When you feel like you have to put that many people in the state to cover it, means you think you’re in trouble and you have to have a surge,” said Jack Jackson, McCain’s Missouri co-chairman.
I think that remark tells the whole story. In all my years, I've never seen political malpractice of this magnitude.
(Thanks to Political Base reader JNail for pointing out the early-state rules and Silver's tally of campaign offices.)
Fast Facts
31 states allow no-excuse pre-Election Day in-person voting - either early voting on a voting machine or in-person absentee voting.
4 states and the District of Columbia require an excuse for in-person absentee voting
1 state is all vote-by mail
16 states do not allow early or in-person absentee voting
28 states allow no-excuse absentee voting by mail
22 states and the District of Columbia require an excuse to vote absentee by mail
Detailed BreakdownStatePre-Election Day In-Person VotingAbsentee Voting
Alabama
No. (In-person absentee voting repealed in 2001.)
Excuse required. Code of Alabama Section 17-11-3
Alaska
Yes. In-person absentee voting. No excuse required. 15 days prior to an election through election day at regional election office buildings and airports. Alaska Statute 15.20.061
No excuse required. Alaska Statute 15.20.010
Arizona
Yes. Early voting. No excuse required. For general and primary elections, starts 33 days before election day and ends 5pm the Friday before election day. For the presidential preference election, starts 26 days before the election. AZ Secretary of State and Arizona Revised Statutes 16-541(A)
No excuse required. Arizona Statutes refer only to "early ballots", which can be voted in-person or by mail. Arizona Revised Statutes 16-541(A)
Arkansas
Yes. Early voting. No excuse required. Early voting shall be available to any qualified elector who applies to the county clerk's designated early voting location, beginning fifteen (15) days before a preferential primary, general primary, general election, or general run-off election between the hours of 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday and 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Saturday and ending at 5:00 p.m. on the Monday before the election. Ark. Code Ann. 7-5-418 and Arkansas Secretary of State website
No excuse required. To be qualified to vote an absentee ballot, you must meet one of the following criteria: You will be unavoidably absent from your polling site on election day (the law does not require you to give a reason), or you will be unable to attend the polls on election day because of illness or physical disability.Arkansas Secretary of State website
California
Yes. Early absentee voting. No excuse required. This is an alternative method of casting an absentee ballot; only registered absentee voters may vote early. Calif. Election Code 3018
No excuse required. Voters may also place themselves on a "permanent absentee" list. Calif. Election Code 3003
Colorado
Yes. Early voting. No excuse required. Begins 15 days prior to a general election; begins 10 days prior to a primary or special election. Colo. Rev. Stat. 1-8-202
No excuse required. Voters may also place themselves on a "permanent absentee" list. Colo. Rev. Stats. 1-8-102 and 1-8-104.5
Connecticut
No.
Excuse required. Conn. Election Code 9-135
Delaware
Excuse required. Delaware Code 5502
District of Columbia
Yes. In-person absentee voting. Excuse required. DC Board of Elections and Ethics website
Excuse required. D.C. Code Ann. 1-1001.09 (b)(2)
Florida
Yes. Early voting. No excuse required. Begins 15 days prior to election. Fla. Stats. Title 9, ch. 101.657 and Elections Division page
No excuse required. Ballots are mailed no fewer than 45 days before a general election (35 for primaries). Fla. Stats. Title 9, ch. 101.62
Georgia
Yes. In-person absentee voting. No excuse required. An elector who casts a ballot in-person during the week preceding an election "shall not be required to provide a reason". Ga. Code 21-2-380(b)
No excuse required. An elector who applies for absentee ballot by mail "shall not be required to provide a reason". Ga. Code 21-2-380(b)
Hawaii
Yes. In-person absentee voting. No excuse required. Absentee polling places are open no later than 10 working days before Election Day, and all Saturdays falling within that period, or as soon thereafter as ballots are available. Hi. Code 15-7
No excuse required. Hi. Code 15-4(a)
Idaho
Yes. In-person absentee voting. No excuse required. Idaho Statutes 34-1006
No excuse required. Idaho Statutes 34-1001
Illinois
Yes. Early voting. No excuse required. The period for early voting by personal appearance begins the 22nd day preceding a general primary, consolidated primary, consolidated, or general election and extends through the 5th day before election day. A permanent polling place for early voting must remain open during the hours of 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., or 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., on weekdays and 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays. 10 Ill. Comp. Stat. Ann. 5/19A-15
Excuse required. 10 Ill. Comp. Stat. Ann. 5/19-1
Indiana
Yes. In-person absentee voting. No excuse required. IC 3-11-10-26
Excuse required. IC 3-11-10-24
Iowa
Yes. In-person absentee voting. No excuse required. The voter may vote at the county commissioner's office no more than 40 days preceding a primary or general election. Iowa Code, Title 2, Chapter 53.10
No excuse required. Iowa Code, Title 2, Chapter 53.1
Kansas
Yes. Advance voting. No excuse required. Kan. Stat. 25-1122a
No excuse required. Kan. Stat. 25-1119
Kentucky
Yes. In-person absentee voting. Excuse required. Ky. Rev. Stat. 117.085(c)
Excuse required. Ky. Rev. Stat. 117.085(a) and Ky. Rev. Stat 117.075
Louisiana
Yes. Early voting (but must apply, similar to in-person absentee voting). No excuse required. The period of early voting shall be from fourteen (14) to seven (7) days prior to any scheduled election. La. Rev. Stat. 18-1309
Excuse required. La. Rev. Stat. 18-303(B)
Maine
Yes. In-person absentee voting. No excuse required. Voters may go in-person to the clerk's office as soon as absentee ballots are available (30 - 45 days before election). Maine Rev. Stat. Title 21A 9-753-B(8)
No excuse required. Maine Rev. Stat. Title 21A, Chapter 9-751
Maryland
Excuse required. Md. Code, Title 9, Section 304
Massachusetts
Excuse required. M.G.L. Chapter 54, Section 86
Michigan
Excuse required. Michigan Compiled Laws Act 116 of 1954, Secion 168-759
Minnesota
Yes. Excuse required. In-person absentee voting. Minnesota Statues 203B.081
Excuse required. Voters who are permanently unable to vote in-person on Election Day (e.g., due to illness or nursing home residence) may sign up for permanent absentee status. Minnesota Statues 203B.02
Mississippi
Excuse required. Miss. Code of 1972, Section 23-15-713
Missouri
Excuse required. Missouri Rev. Stat. Section 155.277
Montana
Yes. In-person absentee voting. No excuse required. Begins 30 days prior to general election. Mont. Code Annotated 13-13-222
No excuse required. Permanent absentee status is also available. Mont. Code Annotated 13-13-201
Nebraska
Yes. In-person early voting. No excuse required. Ballots can be voted up to 35 days before the election. Neb. Stat. 32-942
No excuse required. Neb. Stat. 32-938
Nevada
Yes. Early Voting. No excuse required. The period for in-person early voting begins the third Saturday before an election, extending through the Friday before Election Day, excluding Sundays and holidays. Nev. Rev. Stat. 293.356
No excuse required. Nev. Rev. Stat. 293.313
New Hampshire
Excuse required. Source: NH Rev. Stat. 657:1
New Jersey
No excuse required. Source: New Jersey Statutes 19:57-2-4
New Mexico
Yes. Early voting. No excuse required. Commencing on the third Saturday prior to an election, an early voter may vote in person, on an electronic voting machine at an alternate location established by the county clerk. N.M. Stat. 1-6-5.7
No excuse required. N.M. Stat. 1-6-3
New York
Excuse required. N.Y. Election Law, 8.400 [PDF]
North Carolina
Yes. One-stop absentee voting. No excuse required. Beginning on the third Thursday before an election and ending on the last Saturday before that election, voters can vote an absentee ballot in person. The law provides only for in-person absentee voting at the office of the county board of elections, but allows counties to establish alternative sites (as approved by the State Board of Elections). N.C. Gen. Stat. 163-227.2
No excuse required. N.C. Gen. Stat. 163-226a
North Dakota
Yes. Early voting. No excuse required. Counties provide early voting facilities up to fifteen days immediately before the day of the election, at the discretion of county auditors. N.D. Stat. 16.1-07-15
No excuse required. N.D. Stat. 16.1-07-01
Ohio
Yes. In-person absentee voting. No excuse required. Begins 35 days before primary and general elections. OH Secretary of State
No excuse required. OH Secretary of State
Oklahoma
Yes. In-person absentee voting. No excuse required. A registered voter may apply for an in-person absentee ballot at a location designated by the secretary of the county election board from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday and Monday immediately preceding any election and from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday immediately preceding a state or federal election. Ok. Stat. 26-14-115
No excuse required. Ok. Stat. 26-14-115
Oregon
All mail-in voting.Ore. Stat. 254.465
No excuse required. Ballots are mailed about three weeks before each election. Ore. Stat. 253.015
Pennsylvania
Excuse required (affirmation of absence). Pa. Code 171.11
Rhode Island
Excuse required (21-day advance application). R.I. Stat. 17-20-2
South Carolina
Excuse required. (Can apply and vote on same day, if the ballots are prepared.) S.C. Code 7-15-320
South Dakota
Yes, in-person absentee voting. At anytime prior to an election, a voter may apply in person to the person in charge of the election for an absentee ballot during regular office hours up to 3:00 p.m. of the day of the election. S.D. Code 12-19-2.1
No excuse required. (Application deadline 3pm on election day.) S.D. Code 12-19-1
Tennessee
Yes. Early voting. No excuse required. A voter who desires to vote early shall go to the county election commission office within the posted hours not more than twenty (20) days nor less than five (5) days before the day of the election. Tenn. Code 2-6-102
Excuse required. Tenn. Code 2-6-201
Texas
Yes. Early voting. No excuse required. Early voting in person starts 17 days before each election unless the first day falls on the weekend, then early voting begins on the following Monday and ends 4 days before each election. Tex. Elec. Code 81.001
Excuse required. Tex. Elec. Code 82.001
Utah
Yes. Begins fourteen days in advance of election. No excuse required. Utah Elec. Code 20A-3-601
No excuse required. Utah Elec. Code 20A-3-301
Vermont
Yes. Up to 30 days in advance of a general election, in the Town Clerk's office. No excuse required. Vermont Stat. 17¤2537
No excuse required. Vermont Stat. 17¤2531
Virginia
Yes. In-person absentee voting. Excuse required. Absentee voting in person begins approximately 45 days before a November General Election and approximately 30 days before other elections and ends at 5:00 p.m. on the Saturday before the election. Va. Code 24.2-707
Excuse required. Va. Code 24.2-700
Washington
No excuse required. R.C.W. 29A.40.010
West Virginia
Yes. No excuse required. Available from the twentieth day before the election to the third. W.V. Code 3-3-3
Excuse required. W.V. Code 3-3-1
Wisconsin
Yes. In-person absentee voting. No excuse required. Ballots available three weeks ahead of each election. Wi. Code 6.29
No excuse required. 6.20 and 6.85
Wyoming
Yes. In-person absentee voting. No excuse required. 40 days before election.
No excuse required.
Don't just scream at the TV take action.
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Also, please write letters to your local newspapers in support of Obama. Thanks to Lynn, Vicki, and others who've given me more emails to add to my list!
