Palin to Resign as Alaska Governor by End of Month

By Philip Rucker and Eli Saslow
Washington Post Staff Writers
July 3, 2009

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) announced this afternoon she will resign from
office by the end of the month and return to private life, a stunning
decision by last year's Republican vice presidential candidate to leave
office before the end of her first term.

"We know we can effect positive change outside government at this moment in
time on another scale and actually make a difference for our priorities,"
Palin said in a news conference alongside a lake in her hometown of Wasilla,
Alaska.

Palin, 45, has been seen as a leading candidate for the GOP presidential
nomination in 2012. She did not make clear today whether she plans to seek
that office or any other. Using a basketball analogy, she said, "I know when
it's time to pass the ball for victory."

Palin said the decision to resign had been in the works "for a while" and
was based on prayer and talking with her husband, Todd, and their five
children. Her kids, she said, encouraged her to step down.

"It was four 'yeses' and one 'hell yeah,' and the 'hell yeah' sealed it,"
Palin said.

Palin said she knew she would not run for reelection as governor, and she
did not want to be a "lame duck" merely for the sake of serving out the
remainder of her term.

"I cannot stand here as your governor and allow the millions of dollars and
all that time go to waste just so I can hold the title of governor," she
said.

Palin spokeswoman Meg Stapleton rejected the idea the move was aimed at
better positioning herself for 2012. "She is not focused on 2012 -- she is
focused on making a difference on the topics she finds so dear: energy
independence [and] national security."

Palin's decision not to run for reelection in 2010 and to leave office
imminently came as a shock to Republican strategists today.

"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.

Palin's standing in public opinion polls in Alaska had been diminishing in
recent months as she pursued her national ambitions and rejected some
federal stimulus money amid ethics investigations into her office.

Alaska Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell (R), who will succeed Palin, appeared with
Palin and complimented her service to the state.

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Palin's Foolish Resignation

Sarah Palin, as you may well have heard, is resigning as governor of Alaska
later this month in order, reports The Post's Chris Cillizza, to focus on a
2012 presidential bid. And, in one stroke, she reconfirms many of the
reasons she will never be president.

First, the timing: It's not just that there's more time between now and the
next presidential election than has yet elapsed since the last one. There's
more time between now and the next midterm election than has passed since
last November. Perhaps never has a presidential hopeful so poorly disguised
her overambition. Sure, it's tough to campaign and govern a state so far
away from Iowa. But she could have simply decided not to run for reelection
next year. This makes her look incapable of juggling multiple tasks at once.

Which points to a larger problem: judgment skills, or, rather, her
questionable possession of such. From her disastrous campaign interviews to
her self-aggrandized insistence that she speak on election night to her
inability to decide whether or not to speak at GOP functions to her
incompetence at handling the press to her gratuitous spat with David
Letterman, she has demonstrated a volatile temperament and an incapability
to think strategically. As John Weaver, a long-time McCainite, told The Post
this afternoon: "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."

All together, the picture is of a politician with obvious abilities to
connect to ordinary folks -- but one who is also arrogant, unstable and
unwise. Her latest move makes the image even clearer.

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