The McCain Campaign’s moronic Affirmative Actioning in selecting Alaska’s first-term Governor Sarah Palin for their VP candidate is of course foolish. Republicans can only win by ensuring a high turn out by their key constituency, white men of Christian heritage. Yet another sign that they are to be discriminated against by a McCain Administration may well keep a critical number at home on Election Day.

Congratulations to our old friend and sometime contributor Kevin Michael Grace, for the best comment so far on this, part of a brilliant satirical essay on his blog The Ambler:

Dan Quayle, however, struck a discordant note. Reached at his home in Paradise Valley, AZ, the former Vice President declared, “You remember the s–t I went through when Bush picked me in ‘88? I was ‘too young’ and ‘too inexperienced.’ Well, compared to this broad, I was Daniel F—–g Webster.” Quayle refused further comment, mumbling enigmatically, “It’s Miller time.”

(Hat Tip, Steve Sailer)

Others in the Immigration Control movement besides ourselves are wondering about Sarah Palin’s stance on immigration. The Diggers Realm blog has been hard at work, coming up with a photograph of Palin as Miss Wasilla in 1984 and adding some incisive comment:

she’s unknown and unexpected and after looking around, severely inexperienced to run this country should John McCain die in office.
Once again, as with illegal immigration, John McCain is playing Russian Roulette with this country.
Nobody in this election has been thinking about America. This choice proves that McCain cares more about being elected than the future of our country.

(McCain Picks Beauty Pageant Journalist Sarah Palin As Running Mate)

Digger’s Realm does point out one positive:

On the positive side of it, she does have more experience actually running something than Obama, who so far in his career has only pushed a button voting yeah or nay on something.

Unfortunately, as VDARE.com has noted, Alaska is far from insulated from the impact of mass immigration. The crucial Fish Canning business has been substantially de-Americanized and those relying on the work impoverished. Palin must know this–especially as her husband works as a Bristol Bay salmon fisherman in season. Her silence on the issue is ominous: business owners in this tiny community have probably got to her.

And, of course as Digger’s Realm says

All I can assume is that she is in lockstep with McCain’s amnesty since amnesty for illegal aliens is an issue he has such a passion for that he has gotten angry at anyone who questions him on it - including voters

Subsequently, Digger’s Realm has posted a Bleg:

There is absolutely no stance or action on illegal immigration recorded on Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin anywhere in statements or press releases. We have absolutely no idea where she stands on the border fence, birthright citizenship, workplace enforcement, sanctuary cities and in general, amnesty. This is disturbing for a running mate that could potentially end up as the commander in chief should McCain die in office. I have looked far and wide for information and come up blank…

If anyone can find information on Sarah Palin’s stance on illegal immigration please send it on by posting a comment below or through the contact link at the top and bottom of this site. Thank you

Sarah Palin On Illegal Immigration - Who Knows?

VDARE.com strongly endorses this project.

A happy thought: perhaps by picking Palin, from a state with a narrow undiversified industrial base, where a key cash employer has pigged out on imported labor, McCain may have inadvertently brought his hated issue back on stage.

VDARE.com hopes we all hear more about the Fish Cannery business in Alaska in the coming months.

In a 2004 article originally published in the New York Post, the Manhattan Institute’s estimable Heather Mac Donald (also see here) tossed off a couple of paragraphs about illegal immigration that amounted to one of those the-emperor-has-no-clothes statements:

President Bush’s proposal to legalize the country’s 10 or so million illegal aliens rests on a fallacy: that immigration enforcement has failed to stem the tide of illegal aliens. Therefore, the argument goes, amnesty is the only solution to the illegal-alien crisis.

But immigration enforcement has not failed — it has never been tried. Amnesty, however, has been tried, and it was a clear failure that should not be repeated again. [emphasis added]

Mac Donald’s simple observation — obvious to those who have long been toiling for immigration-sanity, but not widely recognized by the inattentive general public — is clearly a component of the attrition-through-enforcement strategy that is currently proving itself in real life.

Now, in the aftermath of the giant raid on Howard Industries, the Jackson, MS Clarion-Ledger has published a sober editorial (Immigration: Raid of this size raises questions, August 28, 2008) whose penultimate paragraph should be music to all VDARE readers’ ears:

A raid of this size points to the complex issues involved in immigration reform efforts. The most effective reforms would be to enforce existing laws. [emphasis added]

We could lay the illegal-immigration fight to rest and start on legal immigration if the Clarion-Ledger editors’ insight would — please! — just go viral among their mainstream-media colleagues. (I’m an atheist, but everyone who’s not should pray for this.) Meanwhile, VDARE’s Mississippi readers can submit letters-to-the-editor lauding the Clarion-Ledger crew for recognizing reality.

So here we are with the Affirmative Action Presidential election. Both tickets feature someone in their 40s, each in their first terms of office in positions of any national significance. Neither would be where they are except for Affirmative Action.

No doubt the reflexive me-too McCainites are feeling smart. If they actually were smart, they would be aware that their core constituency – white men of Christian heritage – resents Affirmative Action. And yes, they do have an alternative: not voting.

But for the apparently small minority of us who think politics should be about policy rather than posturing, the elevation of Alaska’s Governor Palin provides an opportunity to raise an important question.

As Ryan Kennedy pointed out here last May (The Salmon Symptom: Hillary And The Democratic Party Abandon American Workers May 07 2008) Alaska has long provided seasonal work involving long hours and very tough conditions: the fish cannery industry’s slime- line

The slime-line is some of the most unpleasant work you could imagine. Basically, the job is to rip the guts out of a salmon as fast as you can in order to do another, and another, and another for 12+ hours, everyday, 7 days a week, all summer

Forty years ago, the pay in this activity was so high – almost $20 an hour in today’s money – that it attracted Wellesley student Hillary Clinton.

Now the Cannery Industry has forced down real wages more than 60% of that by importing immigrants, many probably illegal. As Rob Sanchez reported here, it goes to almost comic lengths to avoid recruiting Americans.

So now we have an Immigration question for VP nominee Palin: does she approve of the elimination of Americans in this part of one of Alaska’s crucial industries, by the wholesale import of low wage immigrants?

The nicely complements our question for McCain: does he approve his maximum contributor Mrs. Billy Howard’s displacement of Mississippi workers in her plants by immigrants, many apparently illegal?

Any patriotic MSM Press Conference attendees out there?