And Todd is called the Shadow Governor in Alaska. Will he be the Shadow VP? What will Sarah tell him when she is briefed on security matters??

Also I wonder if there was any pressure on the group. Of course maybe they couldn't prove anything with her, I mean folks said she was at their conventions, but maybe that's was as a guest of her husband.

So she wasn't a member, but she did attend functions?

I bet the McCain campaign will cry "Spouses are off limits". The MSM has to do the digging on this one, because there is smoke here.

Good to get this sorted out. I suspect there is plenty more to cause her to want to "spend more time with her family".
I'm actually quite sympathetic to her and her family. The McCain folks have given her a tiger's tail to hold on to. She still may say thanks but no thanks. It would be to her credit.

It would seem clear that Sarah Palin at least attended the AKIP convention, and may have held herself out to be a member, given that Lynette Clark believed Palin was a member.

Regardless, here are some other facts that show Sarah Palin's AKIP sympathies and tie-in's:

- The motto of AKIP is "Alaska First - Alaska Always". See http://www.akip.org/ This ties in with Sarah Palin's comments in her Larry Kudlow interview that she would want to make sure the Vice President slot would be a fruitful position especially for Alaskans http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oro2Yh9HoEM

- Palin's desire to exploit Alaskan natural resources and achieve economic self-sufficiency for Alaska is shared by the AKIP party. See Palin's interview with Glenn Beck http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3jnbiHAMuY and

- The Former Alaskan Governor Walter Hickel, also a member of the Alaska Independence Party, was quoted in the Alaska Dispatch as saying, "I made her [Palin] governor". See http://alaskadispatch.com/index.php?view=article&catid=1:talk-of-the-tundra&id=23:hickel-stands-by-his-words-stevenss-time-is-over

- When Palin was pregnant with Trig and her water broke while visiting Texas, she rather strangely flew back to Alaska rather than go to a hospital in Texas. This also ties into the Palin's AKIP beliefs: it was extremely important to them that Trig be born in Alaska and therefore be entitled to native Alaskan "citizenship". See http://www.adn.com/626/story/382864.html

In summary, even though Palin denies AKIP membership, there is a lot that shows she shares AKIP beliefs.

While I think it's a little odd to have flown back to AK, I think that it may have less political reasons. Most women, if they've had previous children, know about how their labors progress. Depends on the person, and it can be variable.
Just because her son has Down syndrome she wasn't automatically putting his or her life at risk. My son also has Down syndrome, and we found out prenatally (for the record, I was and still am strongly pro-choice. My choice was to continue the pregnancy). In my case, and I'd bet hers, too- we did many, many targeted ultrasounds to check for any health problems we could before birth, so we knew what to expect (within reason). In our case, we saw that my son didn't have any of the major health issues that can be more common in babies with Down syndrome, and we knew that we didn't have to have the neonatologists in the delivery room. As far as the actual birth went, it was just like any other. Hers may have been the same, and she may have known that she had time to get back to her own birth team. I can't fault her for that.

I don't know. Maybe she was hellbent on having her son in AK because of some native Alaskan citizenship thing. In any case, it wasn't necessarily a big health risk. There are plenty of other reasons to question her ability, but I don't know that this should be one of them.