Palin to Resign as Governor of Alaska
By Mitchell L. Blumenthal AND Kate Phillips
Robert DeBerry/The Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, via Associated Press Sarah Palin at the news conference on Friday afternoon.Update | 7:00 p.m. Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska announced Friday that she would step down by the end of the month and not seek a second term as governor, fueling speculation that she is trying to position herself as a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.
Her decision follows a week of extraordinarily bad publicity, from within her own state over ethics inquiries and across the national landscape as top aides on her vice-presidential campaign and supporters have been engaged in a highly public feud that has spilled out in vociferous tones online on blogs and on television. Bloggers in Alaska, critics of the governor as well as former Palin supporters, suggest also that pending releases of e-mails among the Palins were about to expose her to further questions about her finances and governance issues.
In fact, Governor Palin signaled in her nearly breathless news conference that more trouble may lie ahead, as she cited battles that could cost her millions of dollars, a pile-up adding on to her burdens.
Ms. Palin, who was Senator John McCain’s vice presidential running mate last year and solidified the support of the party’s conservative base, explained her decision at a news conference at her home in Wasilla, Alaska, accompanied by her husband, Todd, and other family members.
“We know we can effect positive change outside of government,” she said in making the announcement. Full text of the speech.
Known as Sarah Barracuda when she played basketball in high school, Ms. Palin used point guard analogy in explaining her decision, saying she knows “exactly when to pass the ball so the team can win.”
She said that she planned to hand over the reins of the state government to Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, who would be sworn in at the governor’s picnic in Fairbanks later this month.
“This decision came after much consideration,” Ms. Palin told reporters gathered at her home, and added, “I really don’t want to disappoint anyone with this announcement.”
There had been wide speculation that she would seek to be the Republican Party’s presidential candidate in 2012. Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, who is also considered to be a leading Republican candidate for president in 2012, announced last month that he would not seek re-election.
By leaving office early, Ms. Palin, a 45-year-old mother of five, will be able to travel around the country more freely and not be constrained by the duties and responsibilities of being a governor.
However controversial, the Alaska governor still draws big crowds among conservative voters and national Republicans, responding to the news, suggested that she would be a great weapon in this year’s elections in various states. Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, acknowledged her pull in a statement issued tonight: “I plan on talking to Governor Palin very soon. She is an important and galvanizing voice in the Republican Party. I believe she will be very helpful to the Party this year as we wage critical campaigns in Virginia and New Jersey.”
Reached by CNN at her farm in the Shenandoah valley, Mary Matalin, a top Republican consultant, called Ms. Palin’s move “brilliant” although she said she was initially taken aback by the news. But she seconded the notion that the governor’s decision was smart in the sense that it will free her up, as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has been, to travel the country to make inroads with potential voters.
The resignation would remove Ms. Palin, for example, from criticisms like those she received earlier this year when she was forced to cancel appearances in the “lower 48” to pursue her national ambitions at a time of disastrous flooding in Alaska.
Ms. Matalin joked that despite her own initial inside-the-Beltway reaction of surprise, shoppers at her local WalMart in the Shenandoah would be whooping “hoo-rahs” because of Ms. Palin’s continued popularity among conservative voters.
Democrats were quick to seize on Ms. Palin’s controversial role in state and national politics. Brad Woodhouse, communications director of the Democratic National Committee, issued these remarks:
Either Sarah Palin is leaving the people of Alaska high and dry to pursue her long shot national political ambitions or she simply can’t handle the job now that her popularity has dimmed and oil revenues are down. Either way - her decision to abandon her post and the people of Alaska who elected her continues a pattern of bizarre behavior that more than anything else may explain the decision she made today.
At her news conference, Ms. Palin took no questions. But she also alluded to what may be lingering doubts as to the date of her announcement, given a series of very public, unflattering portraits of her in the national and state media.
“Some are going to question the timing of this, and let me say this decision has been in the works for quite a while,” she said.
But the timing is quite extraordinary. At home, she has faced new criticism that ethics inquiries surrounding her — including Troopergate involving her former brother-in-law — had cost upward of $300,000 in state money, according to The Anchorage Daily News.
And just this week, a new Vanity Fair magazine article exposing exceptional animus toward her by top aides to Senator McCain, her running mate, has revived questions about her political acumen and her political future.
The article indeed sparked quite a eyebrow-raising public airing of problems with her as a national candidate; it has unleashed what had been a simmering, longterm angst among aides who tried to stage-manage her vice-presidential run. The article, by Todd Purdum, keeps on giving, as it were, as these internal feuds have now gone viral online among top McCain aides like Steve Schmidt, who during her initial debut, was one of her staunchest defenders at the convention and beyond. Now he and William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and one of Ms. Palin’s earliest fans, are engaged in an online/offline war that has become epic in its vitriolic exchanges.
Before the recent campaign fallout, Ms. Palin had returned to the national stage in June with a series of appearances in upstate and downstate New York, as well as deciding to attend the Republicans’ big annual fund-raiser after initially declining to be its keynote speaker. Her appearances, to big popular crowds, ultimately were overtaken by a wild, highly publicized feud with CBS’ David Letterman, after he made on-air jokes about her daughter being “knocked up” by ballplayer Alex Rodriguez. The joke was a reference to her daughter Bristol’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy that overwhelmed even her debut at the Republican National Convention when it was disclosed in tandem.
Objections by Ms. Palin, her supporters and many dispassionate viewers prompted Mr. Letterman to issue repeat on-air apologies, especially since the daughter in attendance at a New York ballgame with Ms. Palin was her younger daughter, Willow, who is 14.
And her difficulties in the state of Alaska have continued. Indeed this past week, the state’s health director Barbara Wooley, resigned, citing differences with the governor over social policies.
Rivals for the governor’s job also are stepping up. State Sen. Hollis S. French, who filed a letter of intent on Wednesday to run for governor, said, “The idea that ’the going got tough so i decided to quit’ is inexcusable. That is not an Alaskan value. We celebrate the mushers who drive on through the storm despite the hardship. Absent some physical or mental infirmity, this is unacceptable. You keep going.”
Reactions from others in Alaska, including fellow Republicans: Former Senate President Lyda Green, a Republican who has clashed with Ms. Palin referred to the energy issues Ms. Palin so often promotes.
“Alaska is better off. Her legacy will be how she put the oil industry into a tail spin in Alaska,” Ms. Green said, referring to the higher taxes that oil companies have seen under the Palin administration.
Ms. Green added, “She has not been invested as governor. There is no vision, no plans, no improvement. It was just go out, tax and punish.”
Still, the governor’s planned resignation has immediately given rise to those with aspirations to be her successor. “It caught everybody by surprise,” said former Republican House Majority Leader Ralph Samuels, who is contemplating a run for governor in 2010. “I’ve had a million calls today from friends, all political junkies and everyone is asking the same questions. Is it national ambition, or does she want time to write the book, or is she just tired of it? Don’t have a clue.”
Meanwhile, Nick Ayers, the executive director of the Republican Governors Association, expressed confidence tonight that the G.O.P. would continue to hold on to the Alaska seat. “While we regret the news announced by Governor Palin today, Alaska will continue to have a Republican governor through 2010 and we are confident the state will elect a Republican in next year’s election.”
But Mr. Ayers also told Fox News that Governor Palin’s decision reflected her weariness with critics: “I don’t think this is buckling to pressure,” he said. “I think this is her coming to the realization that the legislature in Alaska and that some bloggers and activists in Alaska are going to do everything they can to stymie her progress. This is a governor who didn’t run for the office because she wanted a title. She wanted to make significant change in the state. She realized that that was no longer going to be able to happen, because things had become so partisan there.”
Ms. Palin arrived on the political scene in Alaska in 2006, a self-described “hockey mom” and small-town mayor who ousted the incumbent governor to become the youngest person and first woman to hold the post.
Two years later, Senator McCain drafted her as his running mate. During the fall campaign, she was by far the most polarizing figure on the trail, drawing huge, devoted Republican crowds, but deeply negative reactions from Democrats and many independents. Her career in a timeline.
In addition to Ms. Palin and Mr. Pawlenty, several other Republicans are being viewed as potential candidates, including some who have seriously damaged their chances through self-inflicted wounds.
Gov. Bobby Jindal of Lousiana, 38, considered a rising star in the party, was sharply ridiculed in February after delivering a flat Republican response to a speech by President Obama to a joint session of Congress. And two others with presidential aspirations — Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Senator John Ensign of Nevada — both admitted that they had been involved in extramarital affairs.
Serge Kovaleski and Jo Becker contributed to this post.
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