In a shocking move that defies all expectations, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin announced she would resign by the end of the month in a press conference held this afternoon at her private Alaska home.
Many expected Palin simply to announce that she would not seek her second term, which would have been easy enough to explain given her presidential ambitions. It’s tough to run a presidential campaign while serving as Governor, especially when we’re talking about Alaska’s chief executive. Add to that the stain of the mounting ethical complaints she’s facing and the fact that she’d only be following Romney and Pawlenty’s footsteps, and it made sense for Palin to retire.
But to outright resign, and to do so having barely passed the halfway point of her first term?
If she runs for president, how will she possibly be able to justify her choice not to finish her first term? How can she get Americans vote for a quitter who got tired of her responsibilities after only 30 months? It would be political suicide for her to admit that she did it to prepare a presidential run (giving up an elected office for contest that is three and a half years away signals a level of ambition and irresponsibility voters are bound to reject) but what other explanations can she provide?
How will she argue that she has the requisite experience when voters found her lacking in 2008? Last fall, she introduced herself to America as a small town mayor and a two year Governor.It is insane to think that Palin could present herself in 2012 having added nothing other to her resume than eight more months as Alaska’s chief executive. I simply do not see how Palin can overcome this.
What is most extraordinary is that Palin seems determined to inhabit her own caricature. She has often been criticized for lacking seriousness, for her low interest in substantive issues and for her inability to work on the unglamorous nitty-gritty. So what does Palin do? Instead of proving her critics wrong by spending the next eighteen months concentrating on state politics, beefing up her policy knowledge and proving that she is interested enough in the duties of governing not to be distracted by the next shiny thing, she simply quits.
Her failure to address any of the traits that have damaged her credibility extends well beyond today’s shocker. Just two days ago, the state’s public health director charged that Palin had forced her out because of their difference on social issues - an accusation that fits with other stories surrounding Palin’s tendency to abusively fire state employees like the Wasilla police chief or that infamous state trooper.
All of this is occurring at a time Palin is particularly vulnerable. This week, two must-read stories gained a lot of attention in the political world. The first is a nearly 10,000-word Vanity Fair portrait in which Todd Purdum revisits the 2008 campaign and reports from Alaska to portray her as “erratic,” supremely ambitious, vindictive, engaging in cronyism, willing to bend the truth and exhibiting “extravagant self-regard;” most anecdotes that have come to be known about the Governor are in the piece, as well as new light shed by Purdum.
This piece was quickly followed by a CBS News story that published email exchanges between Steve Schmidt and Palin. In an effort to get the campaign to issue a statement clarifying her husband’s membership in the Alaska Independence Party, Palin conveyed false information to her own campaign. Her attempt to “bend the facts ever so slightly to fit neatly into her version of events,” as CBS artfully characterizes, was met with quite a brutal rebuttal from Schmidt.
Given the negative coverage she has recently received, the mounting ethical inquiries and perhaps a desire to concentrate on family, is it possible that that today’s announcement is meant to signal that she’s giving up on politics (as Red State laments)? I doubt that to be the case, but it’s at least plausible - not that it would make her decision any less irresponsible. We shall soon get an answer, based on whether Palin continues to attend political events and position herself as a leader of the national Republican Party, as William Kristol, ever the fan, hopes she will.
Another possibility is that she is trying to pull a McGreevey and beat revelations about a scandal that’s about to burst; but the fact that she was accompanied by officials like Lieut. Gov. Sean Parnell suggests a level of preparation and no rush to beat a breaking scandal. Would Parnell have agreed to appear at her conference if there was more to this story?
And so we’re left with the 2012 explanation - in preparation for a run against Obama, Palin decided that resigning made more sense than simply waiting for the end of her term in January 2011 - but the rationale behind such thinking completely escapes me.
Let’s face it, nothing she does makes any sense.
She’s is running for president for sure. She is probably attempting to become the “leader of the opposition,” the one the media goes to for any response to the administrations actions, much like Adlai Stevenson did against Eisenhower from 1953-56. This could backfire however; she’ll have been out of a job for 3 and a half years on election day 2012 and this makes her look possibly too ambitious.
Unbelievable…She probably did this on a holiday weekend so as to minimize the impact of it on the news cycle. She couldn’t have waited a year more though? I mean, seriously, if people thought that having less than 2 years experience as a governor would discount her from being VP, surely stepping down before 2/3 of her first term as governor passes will likely be viewed identically.
Joe from NC: She’s is running for president for sure.
I think that’s nowhere near clear; all sorts of rumors are floating around (some sources say she’s leaving formal politics entirely). Is she running? Is there a scandal? Is she just tired of the political media spotlight? (If so, how is she supposed to handle Putin if she can’t handle MSNBC?) It will take a while to see what’s going on.
I don’t see how resigning now would help a presidential run. But politics can be a strange thing….
Taniel: And so we’re left with the 2012 explanation - in preparation for a run against Obama, Palin decided that resigning made more sense than simply waiting for the end of her term in January 2011 - but the rationale behind such thinking completely escapes me.
You and everyone else so far, apparently. I haven’t seen a cogent explanation yet.
She said that she had decided not to run again and didn’t want to serve in a reduced “lame duck” capacity. But even if she knew she wasn’t running again, there was no reason anyone else would know, so she could have stayed in office for some time longer without the lame duck label. If this timing makes sense, no one on the left or right I’ve read so far has been able to say why.
“She’s is running for president for sure.”
President of what? Idiotic thinking?
More information on “grassroots” supporters gathering across the nation to support Sarah Palin for President in 2012 can be found online at http://www.palin4pres2012.com
Note, the website is in danger of crashing due to the flood of readers and supporters signing up to show their interest in a Palin Candidacy. The GOP establishment had better watch out, Sarah Palin and Ron Paul combined with the power of the internet will remove the stranglehold of GOP special interests and the elites who have brought the party to its knees in defeat in the 2008 elections.
Even if Palin runs and becomes the GOP nominee she will be thrashed by Obama in 2012. I thought he would be her easily before but the more she becomes erratic, over ambitious etc the easier it will be to win. Even if Obama’s record is not great he would win because the election would be a referendum on her and not on his record. Just as Bush managed to make the 2004 election about Kerry (his French ways, patriotism etc) rather than his own lamentable record.
I have to say Romney just keeps looking better from a GOP perspective - steady, looks/sounds Presidential and is a serious candidate.
Ron: Sarah Palin and Ron Paul combined with the power of the internet will remove the stranglehold of GOP special interests and the elites who have brought the party to its knees in defeat in the 2008 elections.
I can’t speak for Ron Paul, but where would Palin’s national majority come from? She’s alienated voters from both coasts, educated voters, anyone she deems not to be from “real America.” The Republican Party may become small enough for her to garner a majority there, but she’d get thrashed in the general, leaving the party not on its knees but thoroughly prone.
Unless, of course, the economy is a complete disaster in 2012, which I think is unlikely. And if it is a disaster, then any Republican nominee would have a shot, so it wouldn’t have anything to do with Palin.
I had forgotten how little she apparently knew about just about anything until I saw this greatest hits video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrzXLYA_e6E. Amazing that this person was 8% from a heartbeat away.