Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announced Friday she would not seek a second term and would soon step down as governor.
Via CNN ticker via Twitter
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin: would not seek a second term step down as governor.
Fri, 2009-07-03 15:53
#1
rural - Francesca
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin: would not seek a second term step down as governor.
Fri, 2009-07-03 17:28
#2
[url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/palin-resigning-as-alaska-gove... and Mail: Palin resigning as Alaska governor[/url]
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, former Republican vice-presidential candidate, said Friday she is resigning from office at the end of the month, raising speculation that she would focus on a run for the White House in the 2012 race.
Ms. Palin made the surprise announcement from her home in suburban Wasilla on Friday morning. She said she would step down July 26 but didn't announce her plans.
"It is my duty to always protect our great state," Ms. Palin said in a statement released by her office. "With that in mind, my family and I determined that it is best to make a difference this summer, and I am willing to change things, so that this administration, with its positive agenda, its accomplishments, and its successful road to an incredible future, can continue without interruption and with great administrative and legislative success."
Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell will be inaugurated at the governor's picnic in Fairbanks at the end of the month, Palin spokesman Dave Murrow said.
Ms. Palin was first elected in 2006 on a populist platform. But her popularity has waned as she waged in partisan politics following her return from the presidential campaign.
Her term would have ended in 2010.
More to come
While the speculation seems to be that she is resigning to focus on a 2012 presidential bid, I find this very odd. The 2012 election is three years away. It would seem to make sense for her to at least finish her term next year, rather than quitting suddenly in the middle. Unless she's got another job lined up? Or if there is some as yet to be revealed scandal?
Fri, 2009-07-03 17:33
#3
There has been much ado about her spending in what appears to be electioneering in preparation of 2012 and the costs to the public of of investigating such behaviour.
Fri, 2009-07-03 17:59
#4
From the article linked above by martin
[T]he decision to suddenly quit her post will also reinforce some of the very questions about Palin that were raised in the lengthy Vanity Fair story this week - whether she's overly erratic and prone to ignore her own political advisers.
Two of her own GOP allies were told this week that Palin would announce that she was definitely not running for re-election, but the move to outright leave office has caught many of her supporters by surprise.
Democrats, delighted at yet another opportunity to hammer prominent Republican officeholders, accused Palin of quitting on her state.
"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," said the DNC's Brad Woodhouse. "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."
Fri, 2009-07-03 18:09
#5
Boom Boom
from: Palin to Resign as Alaska Governor on July 26
excerpt:
"We've seen a lot of nutty behavior from governors and Republican leaders in the last three months, but this one is at the top of that," said John Weaver, a longtime friend and confidant of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the party's presidential nominee in 2008 whose of selection of Palin catapulted the first-term Alaska governor to national prominence.
Fri, 2009-07-03 20:07
#6
If it's not meant to escape some oncoming scandal, it could be that she wants to run for a Senate seat in some other state in 2010. She'd need to move there first.
Fri, 2009-07-03 20:21
#7
Even Republican strategists on CNN were puzzled by the move.
A couple nuetralish reporters suggested that there's "more to the story".
Fri, 2009-07-03 20:22
#8
I doubt it. It's a strange move. Particularly if she wants to run in '12. If she's bowing out of politics, it's the best move she's made since entering the political arena.
Sat, 2009-07-04 15:20
#9
remind
Many political observers in Alaska are fixated on rumors that federal investigators have been seizing paperwork from SBS in recent months, searching for evidence that Palin and her husband Todd steered lucrative contracts to the well-connected company in exchange for gifts like the construction of their home on pristine Lake Lucille in 2002. The home was built just two months before Palin began campaigning for governor, a job which would have provided her enhanced power to grant building contracts in the wide open state.SBS has close ties to the Palins. The company has not only sponsored Todd Palin’s snowmobile team, according to the Village Voice’s Wayne Barrett, it hired Sarah Palin to do a statewide television commercial in 2004.
Though Todd Palin told Fox News he built his Lake Lucille home with the help of a few “buddies,” according to Barrett’s report, public records revealed that SBS supplied the materials for the house. While serving as mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin blocked an initiative that would have required the public filing of building permits—thus momentarily preventing the revelation of such suspicious information
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/03/palin-hockey-arena-scandal/
Sun, 2009-07-05 00:56
#10
Sarah Palin is not under investigation by the FBI.
Sun, 2009-07-05 06:38
#11
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Tue, 2009-07-14 13:23
#12
remind
When Senator Bill Wielechowski came on my radio program this week, he dropped a bomb I wasn't ready for; in order for Alaska to avoid a constitutional crisis, "The real solution...is for the governor to say...'I will withhold my resignation until the legislature can meet.'"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shannyn-moore/sarah-palins-constitution_b_...