She did quit as governor after only two years. Do you not think that will be brought up in a national campaign? Shouldn’t her supporters be able to defend that decision?
If Palin has a national campaign to run for president, then the answer to your question, why did she quit, becomes self evident.
We can: why don't you know that?
Why do you use the figure “only 2 years” instead of two and a half years, or 31 months?
By the way, I think that will be a great homerun question for Governor Palin as she describes the history making Republican gains after she moved down here to lead a national conservative movement, it will be a question that gives her a chance to describe the party’s gains, and her accomplishments, and all of these new conservative leaders elected since she went national and endorsed and campaigned in their states.
Today the fill in for Mark Levin recalled something a general said when outmanned and outgunned - and she thinks it was brilliant and with Obama would say such a thing “we’re not retreating, we’re attacking from a different direction”.
Seems to me that’s what Sarah said when she resigned as governor. She decided for the good of her state and the good of the overall battle to play on a different field - one in which she didn’t have her hands tied behind her back. If she hadn’t done this we wouldn’t even be talking about her right now, she wouldn’t have raised 10M for conservatives and we may very well not have had the historic conservative tsumani that just drenched the rats.
Someone remind me. How long was Obama a senator before he quit to run for President?
“She did quit as governor after only two years. Do you not think that will be brought up in a national campaign? Shouldn’t her supporters be able to defend that decision?”
They can try to defend her decision but the bottom line is that she only has 2 years as governor and that is very little experience to be our next commander in chief. I thought it was bad enough that Romney only had 4 years and didn’t run for re-election but I guess Obama really lowered the bar.
I am one of her earliest supporters but still think you ask reasonable questions. The “she’s a quitter” meme will be a big one. I personally think it was the practical thing for her to do. I believe her when she says she & her staff couldn’t do their jobs because of the frivolous law suits. There will be those who never buy it.
I am concerned about over exposure. She’s flippin’ every where! LOL. I think she needs to gradually & carefully start granting more interviews beyond conservative outlets and stay focused on issues & get off the “press was mean to me & my family” wagon. We all know they were but it turns off a lot of people. We can do it for her.
But, you know what? I don’t waste my time worrying about it. She’ll do what she has to do when it’s time to do it. She knows exactly what she’s doing.
I think Freeper, Anamnesis, answer the “quitting” question the best....
“I’d would rather elect someone willing to relinquish power over a title-clinging politician (i.e. Blagovich, Sanford, Chavez) who refuses to surrender power under any circumstances short of being indicted or ousted in a military coup.
“Quitting” isn’t inherently bad, if done for the right reasons. In fact, let’s look at her history. Did you know Palin “quit” another six figure job, her oil & gas ethics commissioner job before she became governor? She resigned to protest corruption when the sitting Republican governor wouldn’t investigate the state party chair for sharing confidential state documents with an oil lobbyist. She quit because by law as a commissioner she couldn’t go public with her concerns because of confidentiality rules. So she quit to be able to blow the whistle on collusion knowing it would probably kill any chance she had to succeed in state politics as a Republican. And you know what happened to that state party chair? He was later given the largest ethics fine in Alaska history, largely because Palin had the courage to put pressure on the governor’s office and the Republican party. And what happened to Palin? She became Governor of Alaska. For a more in-depth look I suggest you look at this thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2630320/posts
Now let’s look at her situation as governor.
Palin was paid roughly 337,500 in 32 months as governor. After 19 bogus ethics charges against her, she owed around 500,000 in legal fees to her attorney. The current laws of Alaska required that every single filed ethics complaint to be investigated no matter how ridiculous (being photographed with a fish, wearing a jacket with a logo, receiving “cookie” bribes) and all at the personal cost of the defendant. Had she stayed in office another 16 months, she likely would have been forced into bankruptcy because Alaska law does not automatically cover the legal defense of its governors nor was the Attorney General of the state or someone else designated by the state to defend her like all other states. If you were working in a job that was costing you almost twice as much to go into work everyday than you were making would you stay there?
Even her set up of a legal defense fund like other politicians have was deemed unethical (It was arguably the strictest legal defense fund in history with all the restrictions it had for those who could donate) wherein a politically motivated investigator suggested Palin should just let Alaska taxpayers pay for her legal defense. They wanted Alaskans to take the bullet for the political malice of Palin’s enemies.. In less than a year, she racked up half-a-million (to put this in perspective, her salary as Governor was only 125,000 a year and she had even declined a 25,000 raise by the legislature) in legal charges with much more to come.
One can argue that she should have just fought her enemies instead of letting them win.
If you decide to continue fighting your enemies at the expense of the people you serve is that even ethical? If your presence in office is causing heavy collateral damage to your state, is it smart and ethical to remain in office no matter the cost? Has any politician at the state level attracted the volume of attacks directed at Palin? Is it normal for a governor to go personally bankrupt defending themselves against bogus ethics complaints? Palin incurred almost twice as much legal debt as the salary she drew as governor. Every day she spent in office she was one day closer to personal bankruptcy.
These frivolous lawsuits effectively paralyzed her administration by wasting time and money doing research for countless Freedom of Information Act requests and addressing the ethics charges. The estimated cost of wasted time for the State of Alaska was 2 million and rising. By resigning she effectively took the circus out of Alaska.”
From thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2630162/posts?page=62#62